The BLTS Archive - In Another Life
Third in the Image series
by Blue Champagne (rowan-shults@sbcglobal.net)

---

Hi. Blue Champagne here.

Yadda yadda yadda Paramount owns characters and setting
yadda yadda I'm seeing no bucks from this yadda yadda
general stuff about not posting, printing or otherwise
archiving or distributing without running this header yadda
done, let's go.

---
Excerpt from the ep "Looking For Par'Mach in All the Wrong
Places":

KIRA: It gets worse. There's a view.

MILES: Of what?

KIRA: The Halana river. You can see it from every room in
the house. At night, when the stars are out, and you can
only hear rushing water...it may be one of the most
romantic spots in all of Bajor.

MILES: THAT'S it. (Jumps up from his seat in the runabout)
I'm not going. I don't care *what* Keiko says, I'm not
going. You go, and I'll wait an hour, and then I'll...I'll
tell her that...you left without me, that there was a
miscommunication about the departure time.

KIRA: (hopefully) You think she'll buy it?

MILES: She'll probably accuse us of having another fight,
of behaving like children, but I can handle that. The
important thing is that we don't go anywhere near that
place together.

KIRA: You are absolutely right. In fact, I'm going to go to
the capital and see Shakaar.

MILES: That's the best idea you've had all week. (They hug)
Have a good trip.

KIRA: Thanks.

MILES: (as they gaze at each other) It would've been nice.

KIRA: In another life.

MILES: Let's not even think about it.

KIRA: All right, let's not. (They are still gazing at each
other) (desperately) Miles...!

MILES: (Starting to lose it and go for a liplock) Yes,
Nerys?

KIRA: (knowing she's about to meet him halfway if he
doesn't take off) Get out!

MILES (snapping out of it) Right. (He disembarks) (Kira
collapses in relief)
---

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

Miles O'Brien was, on some level, aware he was asleep, but
the sensations of oddness, wrongness, wouldn't be quieted
by that realization. It was like knowing there was
something urgent he had to remember, something he had to
do, and no amount of wracking his brain would dredge up the
specifics of this pressing concern.

It wasn't that unusual an occurrence for him these days,
but he never got used to it. Sometimes, he still woke up
suddenly, certain a horrendously loud noise that had rocked
the whole room had done it. Then he'd see Keiko sleeping
soundly next to him, hear the deep, soft thrumming of the
station's systems, and swear softly before lying back down.
Usually he didn't have much trouble getting back to sleep.

This time, he was aware of fussing on the edge of a
wakefulness that he couldn't quite reach. He could almost
feel his real body, but he couldn't move it. He could
almost see, eyelids barely cracked, but only with an
overlay of dream vision. Almost--almost like--

He jerked awake with a gasp, awash in the terrific
exhaustion that always came with a dreamy delirious fight
with the Snark. He didn't bother sitting up. He just turned
to slide an arm over Keiko, who shifted comfortably against
him, then was still. He closed his eyes, hoping the Snark
had had enough for one night.

Apparently it hadn't.

All at once he was out of bed and on his feet, stumbling,
the sheet coming halfway with him. "What in all the plains
of--"

"Miles?" Julian was saying, sitting up groggily, "what's
wrong?"

'Lord let me still be asleep,' Miles thought, realizing
belatedly, in the soft illumination from the lights at the
headboard, that Julian wasn't wearing anything but the
sheet and he himself was entirely in his natural state as
well. "What are you doing here?"

Julian blinked in the dimness. "Sleeping, up until a few
seconds ago. Are you all right? Did you have another
nightmare?"

"Where's Keiko?"

"At this hour I imagine she's asleep as well. Why, was she
in your dream? Miles--" Julian slid over to the edge of the
bed nearest Miles and got up. "Calm down. Let me have a
look at you; if something's really wrong--"

"Please don't bother," Miles enjoined him, backing up. His
bathrobe was lying on a chair and he snatched it up and
pulled it on. "You two are pulling some rotting bloody joke
on me and you can believe I'm going to have you both for
breakfast once you've given it up."

"Actually," Julian said, stopping in his tracks, "we *are*
having her for breakfast. What's the matter, love? If it's
another flashback--"

"I'm not having any blasted flashbacks! I can't *believe*
you'd play with my head so, after everything that--this has
gone far enough. Just get your clothes back on," Miles
snapped.

Julian was quiet a moment; then, still silent, he went to
the dresser and pulled out a pair of the loose pajama pants
Miles had seen him in before. 'Oh, lovely. They thought of
everything. How in Danu's name did he get Keiko to go along
with this?'

Wearing the pants, Julian said "Computer, half lights."
Their dark-adjusted eyes had no trouble seeing in the soft
illumination. "Now. Tell me what the matter is."

Miles steamed. "Julian," he said dangerously, "I am *not*
playing this game!"

"As I asked you before; did you have another nightmare? Are
you having trouble remembering?"

"It won't work. I remember fine. You're *not* my wife."

There was a short pause, as Julian blinked. "No, of course
not," he said. "I'm your husband."

Miles stared.

"Love, try to remember." At Miles's continued silence,
Julian continued gently "Think. The Enterprise. Data
introduced us. You were the transporter Chief, I was one of
doctor Crusher's lieutenants."

"You never served on the Enterprise!"

"I did, for three years. I was finishing my internship
aboard--"

"Julian, damn it, *this* is your first assignment, on the
station! That's it. I'm calling Commander Worf. He was *at*
my wedding. Though I hate to do that to him in the middle
of the night because you and Keiko've decided to see how
far you can push before I blow. If you'll drop this now, I
won't call him."

Julian stared at him a moment, then said "Computer. Put me
through to Keiko Ishikawa's quarters." There was a soft
bleep, and then Keiko's voice. "Ishikawa. Julian?"

"Hello, Keiko. I think you'd better come over; Miles has
apparently just woken from a nightmare, and he doesn't
remember being married to me--as near as I can tell, he
thinks that it was you he married on the Enterprise."

There was a dead silence, then Keiko's voice whispered "Oh
my God. I'll be right there."

"Thanks." Julian refocused on Miles. "Now will you wait for
her before you try calling Mister Worf?"

Miles let his forehead thunk into his palm. "Fine.
Whatever. Let's just play this out and get it over so I can
get some sleep."

"Come on," Julian said softly, starting to put a hand on
his shoulder, but Miles dodged it and went out to the front
room sans guidance.

Julian followed him in after a brief pause to, as it turned
out, pick up a medical tricorder and another scanner the
Chief didn't recognize. "Criminey. How did you two get all
this stuff in here, get me out of my pajamas, and get Keiko
out of bed with me, and you in, without waking me? You
didn't shoot me full of something, did you?"

"Of course not," Julian said, quietly and offhandedly,
running the tricorder over Miles.

Miles growled and sat silent while Julian continued
scanning; in a few minutes, the door signal sounded.

"Come in," Julian called. The lock deactivated and the door
slid open. Keiko stepped in, wearing a pair of low silk
indoor shoes and a deep blue embroidered robe over dark
slacks. She glanced from Miles to Julian to the scanner
Julian was holding.

"You may as well come on in," Miles said. "There's no
reason for the two of you to keep this up."

"Hello, Miles," Keiko said nervously. "Are you feeling all
right?"

"I'm up in the middle of the night to no good purpose, but
other than that I'm fine. Stop sticking that whirring thing
in my face, will you, Julian?"

"Um, Keiko..." Julian began, staring at his readouts, then
adjusting the scanner and trying again. "I don't think..."
he checked the readouts one more time, then finished "I'm
not entirely sure he isn't telling the truth."

"Well, he's not lying, obviously..."

"No. I mean, he may really be married to you, and not me.
Where he comes from."

"Comes from?" Keiko said in puzzlement.

"Miles, let's get dressed," Julian said. "We're going to
the infirmary. Computer, Lieutenant Commander Dax's
quarters."

"She was asleep when I left," Keiko said.

The comm said "Dax here. Now what, Julian? Keiko said
something about--"

"We need your help. I believe we have a visitor, and we
need to figure out where he came from and how he got here.
Can you meet us in the infirmary? I'll explain when we get
there."

"Let me get dressed--I'll have to bring the girls with
me..."

"That's all right, Miles and I need to dress too. We'll see
you there. Bashir out."

Miles felt a sudden frisson. He looked up at Julian, who
was looking grim and scared, and over at Keiko, who was
looking deeply worried.

"Please, you two. Tell me this is a joke."

They were both silent.

"Oh, bloody hell," he groaned, covering his face with his
hands.

"Computer, Captain Sisko's quarters," Julian said quietly.

The trip to the infirmary was silent. Miles spent the time
examining every inch of station they passed through. His
uniform wasn't different. His quarters were different; some
of the furniture was dissimilar or absent. A couple of
Keiko's bonsai were there, he'd seen, but he hadn't had
much of a chance to look around. Julian had hustled him
back into the bedroom, shoved a uniform into his hands, and
then took his own uniform into the bathroom to change into.
He'd been out almost before Miles could get his second boot
on.

The infirmary wasn't different, that he could tell. Not
that he knew that much about it. Dozens of things that
would have been obvious to Julian might be changed. He was
up on a biobed in a trice, and Julian was setting up some
kind of intensive scan when Dax came in--carrying a
blanket-wrapped bundle and followed by Molly, whose hair
was typically sleep-mussed.

"Molly," Miles said, a little uncertainly, and she looked
up.

"Hi, daddy," she said, and came to climb into his lap. He
picked her up, smoothed her hair back, and suffered
bradycardia.

Her almond-shaped brown eyes weren't; they were round as
saucers, large and heavily lashed, pale gold in color. And
as she came into the light, he realized her hair was at
least a couple of shades lighter than it had been. Her skin
was the color of coffee with two creams--almost the same as
Julian's.

"Miles!" Keiko reached for Molly as Miles's grip faltered.
"Be careful--here, let me take her." Keiko swung Molly over
into one arm, resting her on a hip. Molly yawned and sank
back to somnolence, head on Keiko's shoulder.

"Julian, what's going on?" Dax demanded, shifting the
bundle to her other shoulder. "Is Miles sick?"

"I'm not sure," Julian said, "that's why I needed you here.
Look at this."

Patting the bundle, which Miles rubbernecked to get a
better look at and failed to, Jadzia came up next to Julian
and said "I don't--oh."

"Is that what I think it is?" Julian said.

"It looks like a quantum flux...picked up at the cellular
level."

"Cellular RNA, to be exact," Julian confirmed in the lowest
register of his voice, closing his eyes. "We have a
definite problem."

"Mind letting me in on it?" Miles complained.

"Yeah," Keiko backed him up. "What kind of problem? Has
something happened to Miles?"

"Yes," Julian said, "and I think I know what. Jadz, Miles
doesn't remember being married to me. He remembers being
married to Keiko."

"To Keiko?" Jadzia's brows went up. "I saw her first."

"Not the way he remembers it. Where he comes from, I never
served on the Enterprise, but Keiko did work there."

Comprehension bloomed across Jadzia's face. "Have you run
tests down to the subatomic?"

"As closely as I can. That's why we need you. I'm going to
collect what data I can here, then send you two to your
lab. If the flux is present at that pervasive a level,
we'll know for certain."

"Know *what* for certain?" Keiko demanded.

Julian and Jadzia looked at her. Julian said "That this
isn't our Miles, and we're not his people, either. You
remember Worf telling us about his jumping across quantum
fluctuations into parallel universes?"

"I remember it," Miles said, a cold lump forming in his
gut. "You think...but that wasn't--Worf's shuttle
encountered a quantum fissure."

"Yes, a fixed point in resonances, like a bridge across
quantum realities," Jadzia said. "Hello, Benjamin."

Sisko, stopping next to Keiko, said "Please continue. You
have an explanation?"

"Not yet," Dax said. "Not for why. As for what...somehow,
this Miles O'Brien has been switched with the Miles O'Brien
native to our quantum reality. Another term is 'parallel
universe'. We're about to go down to my lab; I'll be able
to tell if the flux is still there, or if the matter in his
body is resonating again at its own quantum signature. That
should tell us if there's going to be another
shift--whether *this* Miles O'Brien will vanish again, to
be replaced by another--or that he's stabilized here, for
the time being. If he hasn't--or really, even if he has--we
have to keep him away from anything that generates a
subspace field pulse." She handed her bundle to Julian, who
took it with practiced ease, setting it up against his
shoulder.

"But what would have precipitated this...shift?" Sisko
wanted to know.

"In Worf's case, if you'll remember--" Dax began.

Sisko interrupted calmly "I'm afraid the more esoteric
aspects of the science slipped by me."

Dax started again. "The destabilization of his quantum
signature wasn't enough in itself to start the shifts--but
it made them possible, whenever Worf encountered a subspace
field pulse generated by a prosthetic vision device. As
yet, we've got no idea where Miles would have encountered a
quantum fissure, or the subsequent field pulse, though the
latter isn't an uncommon phenomenon--plenty of devices and
systems generate them in the course of normal operation."

Julian began "Let's get him to Jadz's lab, then, and--"

"Sir," Miles cut in, "I think I may have an idea where I
would have encountered a quantum fissure, and if I did...it
was *in* the Commander's lab."

Everyone looked at him. Dax asked "You were helping
me--helping your Jadzia in the lab?"

"That's right. Well, I'd done helping you. I was just
observing."

"I don't have anything running in the lab right now. Let's
get down there. Keiko, Julian, will you take Molly and Iko?"

"Iko?" Miles said, his head swiveling.

"Our daughter," Keiko said, "Kirayiko."

Julian came up and set the bundle in Miles's arms. The
Chief pulled the blanket back, and stared. Yes, the baby
looked familiar...almond eyes, dark, fluffy hair, blessed
with the distinctive O'Brien nose.

And she had a light dusting of pale brown spots down the
sides of her brow.

"'Our' daughter?" He looked at Keiko.

"All of us," Keiko nodded. "Julian combined all of our DNA.
Jadzia and me, Julian and you."

Miles, speechless, let Julian take the baby again. "What I
remember," he barely whispered, "is a boy. Your son and
mine, Keiko. Kirayoshi."

Keiko set a sympathetic hand on his arm.

After a moment, Jadzia said gently, "Come on. Let's get to
the lab and make sure."

Numbly, he got down from the biobed and left the infirmary
with Dax and Sisko.

---

"In the case of Worf and his shuttle," Dax was saying as
they stepped off the lift and started down the corridor
toward her lab, "they were able to stop the fluctuation by
sending Worf back through the same quantum fissure he'd
encountered; he activated an inverse warp field that
changed the resonance of the fissure itself so that it was
no longer able to function as a bridge. In this case,
though--"

"Since it was artificially generated, the fissure would
have already closed," Miles said, "and me and your O'Brien
on the wrong sides of it."

"The good thing about that is that there would be less
likelihood of increasingly widespread shifts--to and from
farther and farther off realities from our own," Dax
continued. "Though that is still a possibility. I can't say
for sure what the effect of a subspace field pulse would be
on Miles, and I'm hesitant to find out."

"Me too," Miles muttered.

"Not only that," Dax continued. "According to what I read,
the idea the pertinent Enterprise crew came up with to
return Worf to his own universe--before the plan was messed
up by an attacking ship--was to scan the fissure with a
subspace differential pulse, and locate a quantum signature
that matched Worf's. Again, we've got no fissure to scan,
or to send Miles back through. We do know that it wasn't in
*this* reality that the fissure was generated; so this
Miles is probably the one who initiated the switch--if he
did encounter the fissure in my lab--since the me in this
universe hasn't been working on anything that might cause a
phenomenon like that."

"Then this case parallels that one only to a point."

"Great choice of words, Benjamin." She entered the door
code and they went into the lab.

Jadzia began setting up the scanners she planned to use.
"Have a seat and relax, Miles," she said, gesturing him
toward the console chair. Her brow was knit in
concentration and concern.

Miles ventured "Um...sir...is it true? Keiko and I aren't
married here?"

Sisko paused, then said "It's true. You and doctor Bashir
came here together about the same time that I arrived to
take command--when the station was turned over to the
Bajorans. You had one daughter, Molly, with you."

"Molly...she's *Julian's* daughter?"

"That's right."

"My God. Which of us carried her?"

"Neither," Jadzia said, thumping a readout with her
forefinger. "Something's coming loose in there. No problem
for now, it's just a broken lead. Molly was gestated ex
vivo. That means in a gestation vat," she added as an
afterthought. "Julian wanted to carry her, but..."

"When...the other little girl. She's the daughter of all
four of us?"

"She is," Sisko told him.

"Why?" Miles wondered.

"Relax, Old Man," Sisko said to Jadzia, who was getting a
bit red-faced, her usually smooth features contracted in
concentration. "This isn't an unheard-of phenomenon,
apparently; we'll get your Miles back to you."

"Her Miles? How many of me are there?"

"Only one," Sisko said. "He's a member of a legal family
that involves you and your husband, Jadzia and her wife
Keiko, and Molly and Iko. I performed the ceremony myself."

"Then...you or Keiko, Commander, one of you carried the
baby girl."

"Only for a while," Dax said, still concentrating on her
work, "Major Kira did the worst part. Keiko was the
pregnant one, but there was an accident..."

"In my universe too," Miles said. "Julian had to transfer
our son into Nerys's womb when Keiko was injured."

"That's what happened here," the Captain confirmed.

"All right, Miles," Dax said, "come over here and have a
seat." She patted the console. Miles got up, braced himself
on the console edge, and hopped up. He was immediately
engulfed by blue light from the emitters focused at either
side of him.

"Am I supposed to feel anything?" he wondered.

Dax was working the computer. "No, you shouldn't feel a
thing...and that's...wait a second." She came over,
readjusted the settings on one of the scanners hooked into
the emitter, and returned to the computer. "All right,
that's it. I had to compensate for his uniform, Benjamin,
it's apparently not from the same place he is."

"No, Julian gave me this one when..." he trailed off as his
face slowly got hot.

"Must have been quite a shock for our Miles when he woke up
next to Keiko," Jadzia said, continuing her analysis.

"In my pajamas," Miles muttered.

"Chief," Sisko said, "you said earlier you had reason to
think that you encountered a quantum fissure in your Dax's
lab."

"I couldn't say for certain, sir, but it sounded--from what
she was saying--like it's possible I encountered it there,
and I can't think of another blessed thing it could
possibly have been."

"What did she say that makes you think it's possible?"

"It's what she was working on. She said she was trying to
find a way to analyze the wormhole's space, wormhole
matter, at the quantum level."

"That can't be done," Dax frowned. "At least..." she looked
distant a moment, then shook herself and refocused on her
board.

"Uh-huh, there, see? You'd try it if you thought of it.
What she was doing just then was testing a model she'd
built of what would eventually be an array she planned to
install on the Defiant. She asked me to help her make the
model as much as possible like the sensor array she planned
would be--as far as what the limitations and requirements
were for it to function optimally on the Defiant, without
interfering with ship's systems, and taking as much
advantage of the Defiant's specs as she could in the
array's design."

"And this model was activated while you were in the lab?"
Sisko asked.

"Yes."

"Then why am I still here?" Dax wondered, touching a final
control.

"I couldn't say for sure, but I can tell you that you
weren't in the lab. You--she-- activated it from the
Defiant, taking the information through the existing
sensors. I stayed to observe and stay on the comm with you
so we could match up what we saw, ride herd and shut down
if anything went wrong. And you deactivated it, and that
was the end of it, as far as I know."

Dax looked up. "Nothing anomalous? Nothing you...she wasn't
looking for?"

"No, nothing. It was a pretty early-stage model."

"Hm. Well, I can tell you for certain now, Benjamin. His
quantum signature isn't the same as all the other matter in
this universe. Julian was right; he's not from here. But it
*does* look like he'll be staying a while; at least outside
the sphere of a subspace field pulse, his quantum resonance
signature is stabilizing. The flux is diminishing; it
should be gone in less than an hour."

Miles exhaled blusterily. "God above. I don't know whether
to curse fate, or thank providence that I'm not going
crazy."

"You're lost," Sisko murmured, "but not crazy. Dax...if a
return can be accomplished from here, you probably have the
best chance of figuring out how."

"Miles, you'll have to tell me everything you know about
what she was doing," Dax said, coming up and laying a hand
on his shoulder. "Your Jadzia."

"I don't know much," Miles said. "As I said, I wasn't
involved in the building of it. She just needed advice
about installing it on the Defiant."

"I already know one thing--what she was trying to do. Okay.
Do you know what led her to believe that what she was
trying was possible? Let's get back as far in her inventive
process as we can."

"I'll do my best."

"Benjamin," Jadzia said, turning around. "Julian and Keiko
will have taken the girls back to our quarters. Would you
go and tell them, please? That we know for sure?"

Sisko nodded somberly. "I think I should point something
out. This Miles isn't the only one who made the transition
into a parallel universe."

"Right," Miles said. "Your Miles--or at least *some* other
Miles, if there's been a round-robin shift instead of a
straight switch between your universe and mine--will have
shown up in *my* bed. And my people over there are probably
all doing all the exact same things we are right now. And
since the shift was accomplished from that universe..."

"That Dax," Jadzia nodded, "will have a much better idea
than I do how to repeat the circumstances--which, I hope,
will at least be the first step to getting you both back
home. They do know about what happened to Worf over there,
you say?"

"Oh, yes. Written up in medical and physics journals both,
I know that much. Read about it in one of mine."

Jadzia pondered. "I read about it in one of Julian's. I
just hope that what we do on this side of the fissure
doesn't have an effect on *their* efforts," she said
tensely. "If there were only some way to communicate with
them...in any case, Benjamin, we might be here a while."

"I'll tell them." Sisko turned and strode from the lab.

"Commander," Miles began, and Dax shook her head a little,
gazing at the floor as she sat down in the console chair.

"Please call me Jadzia," she asked softly. "I mean, if you
don't mind. I know I'm not *your* Jadzia."

Miles was quiet a moment. "I don't mind," he said finally.
"You're as much Jadzia as my Jadzia is. If *you* don't mind
my asking...how did you meet Keiko?"

Jadzia smiled. "I met her on the transport on our way here."

"Why was she coming to the station?"

"It was just a stopover for her. She was on her way to
Bajor. She works under contract for the Federation as a
botanist most of the time. For a while I barely saw her,
but it was less than a year after we met that I asked her
to marry me."

"It was less than a year for me, too," Miles whispered.
Then he looked up and raised his voice slightly. "She's
quite something, isn't she?" He smiled just a little.

So did Dax. "Yes. She is. She really is."

"And our...your legal family? Why did we all decide to do
that?"

Jadzia shrugged. "Why does anyone? We're all...us three and
our Miles, I mean...close enough, and dear enough, to each
other to want to make things legal. Particularly, we wanted
our children to have all of us to fall back on, and have it
be a done deal. If something should happen to you and
Julian, for instance, Molly is legally our daughter, too.
Do you have legal families on your side?"

"We do, but I don't know much about them. Neither Keiko nor
I ever considered forming one with anybody. We're all four
married, then?"

"No, it's not the same as a clan marriage; it's--not
precisely, but close--as if we became, legally, sisters and
brothers, you and Julian, me and Keiko."

"I think I see." He paused again. "You're probably quite
upset over losing your Miles then. Not that you won't find
him--like I said, my people will be going through the same
reasoning that we are over here."

"It's not making my night, but I imagine it's not making
yours, either. I still have Keiko and Julian and the girls.
You..."

"Don't say it," Miles muttered. "Please." He closed his
eyes for a moment, then looked back up "Let's get started."

"The sooner the better," Jadzia concurred, and stood up as
he jumped down from the console.

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

Miles shifted uneasily, trying to rid himself of a
bothersome dream. There were no clear details, but he knew
that something wasn't right--something crucial on the
station was broken, somewhere his daughters were crying,
someone was in danger and only Miles Edward O'Brien could
do anything at all about it--

He jerked suddenly, coming awake all at once. He shook for
a few breaths, then muttered a mild curse at how hot he
felt and tried to shove the sheet off. It was wrapped
around his arm. He pulled at it with the other hand. It was
wrapped around that arm too.

It wasn't the sheet.

He sat up and rolled out of bed in a flurry, snapped
"Computer, half lights!"

The lights came up. He was wearing a set of blue pajamas.
"Pajamas?" he wondered, and glanced rapidly around the
remainder of the room. His holodeck wolfskin was hanging in
the corner, but Julian's was gone. And rather than
Kukalaka, on the shelf where the ragged toy usually sat was
a small bonsai tree. One of Keiko's, it looked like. But--

His eyes had finally lit on the bed, and the gown-clad
figure sitting therein, squinting, even in the
half-illumination, at the suddenness of it. "Miles? Is
something wrong?"

"*Keiko*?"

"Yes, what's wrong? I'm here," she said in what sounded
like a tone of reassurance, though why she would think that
fact should reassure him rather than cause him to question
his sanity he had no idea.

"What are you doing here?"

She stopped a couple of feet away. "Did you have another
nightmare?"

"I think I'm still having it. Where the blazes is my
husband?"

"Your *what*?"

"Your brother! You know, the man I've been married to for
years, damn it. What's--I know. It's Jadzia. She convinced
you two to pull a quick change on me, didn't she?"

"Why would she do that?"

"Oh, spare me. We all know what she's like. Though usually
she targets people who deserve it more than I do. Like Odo,
for instance. Look, you can call her and Julian and tell
them the jig's up, very funny and all, joke's on me and all
that lot. But first, tell me one thing--how in the name of
Brian Boru did you get these pajamas on me?"

Keiko stared at him, backing up slowly as her eyes got
bigger and more alarmed-looking, until she bumped against
the bed. She lunged for the comm. "O'Brien to Bashir!"

"No need for such panic as that," Miles muttered, even as
his brow drew in puzzlement at her use of his name. "It's
not as though I'm frothing."

"Bashir here. Keiko?"

"We need you in our quarters. Something's wrong with
Miles--I think he might be having another flashback, or--or
something--please come quick."

"I'm on my way. Stay calm, Keiko."

"Miles," Keiko began carefully, "you're married to *me*."

"To--Keiko," Miles sighed, coming back to sit down next to
Keiko on the bed. "It's been a terrific joke, I'll admit,
but can we drop it? I do need to get some sleep tonight."

A soft wailing started up from another part of the
quarters, audible over the comm.

"Wait a minute," Miles frowned. "I thought you and Jadzia
had the girls tonight. Oh, of course--she's here too, isn't
she?"

"Me and Dax?" Keiko wavered uncertainly as she got to her
feet. "I've got to see to Yoshi. Just...just don't do
anything, Miles. Wait for Julian."

"Calm down, I'm not that angry. As I said, it's one for the
record books, especially the pajamas. Who's Yoshi?"

Keiko's eyes closed in chagrin. "Just stay put. I'll unlock
the door for Julian." She hurried to the bedroom door and
out.

Puzzled, amused and annoyed, Miles sat for a few moments,
looking around the room; Julian's things had been totally
removed and some of them replaced with things he either
didn't recognize or which obviously belonged to Keiko.
Julian didn't have all that much in the way of keepsakes
and such possessions; all the various sorts of plants and
knickknacks made the place look positively crowded. Had
Julian spiked his ale at dinner, or just hypoed him while
he slept, perhaps? Surely not, he knew the younger man far
too well to seriously consider that, but how else...?

The bedroom door opened and Julian came in, in uniform.
"Miles," he said amiably, setting his kit down on the
dresser and opening it to withdraw a medical tricorder.
"What seems to be the trouble?"

Miles rolled his eyes.

Julian smiled. "I know it's an old line, but it still has a
nice professional ring to it, don't you think?"

Keiko appeared in the doorway, holding the now-quiet baby.
He glanced at her, then at Julian, in impatience. "As I
said to Keiko a few minutes ago, it's been fun, and I'm not
angry, but I've a few deadlines to meet tomorrow on the
main reactor job, and I'm going to need some sleep. Could
we call it even and all get back to bed?"

Julian stared at him a moment, then advanced on him,
tricorder whirring.

"You know I hate those things in my face," Miles sighed.

"I know. Stiff upper lip; this won't take long."

Miles grumbled something in frustration and sat quietly
while Julian scanned him.

Julian murmured "If that's...wait just a moment." He
returned to his kit and procured a more specific scanner,
then came back to Miles. The readout unit glowed in his
hand as he stared at the changing figures.

"Well? Can I take it I'm me?" Miles growled.

"You're you," Julian murmured, "but if I'm right...you
aren't Keiko's husband, or my best friend."

"No, I'm *your* husband and Keiko and Jadzia are our best
friends, do I pass your little test? Now will you flush
Jadzia out, and let Keiko dress, and let them take the
girls so we can go back to bed?"

Julian stared into his eyes for a good ten seconds.

"What?" Miles wondered.

Julian touched his badge. "Bashir to Dax."

There was a pause, then a sleepy voice said "Dax here. What
is it, Julian?"

"I need your help in the infirmary. As soon as possible."

"Uh..." she yawned. "Yeah, I'll meet you. What's the
problem?"

"I'm not completely sure. I'm hoping the two of us together
can answer that."

"I'll be there in five minutes. Dax out."

Julian went and repacked his scanners. "Miles, get dressed.
We need to get you to the infirmary, and probably then to
Dax's lab."

Miles looked over at Keiko, who still looked scared, and at
Julian, who was wearing a look of such deadly earnest that
Miles felt a chill coming up his back.

"Love," he said quietly to Julian, "tell me this *is* all a
joke."

Julian glanced away a moment, then back at Miles, shaking
his head slightly once.

"Bloody hell," Miles whispered, letting his head fall into
his hand.

Julian tapped his badge. "Bashir to Sisko."

---

Keiko came as well, which meant that Molly and the baby
were coming too. Julian had taken the drowsy Molly, whom no
one had tried to dress or even straighten up; her nightgown
hung nearly to Julian's knees. Keiko was in a dark blue
embroidered robe and silk flats, holding the baby. One tear
had rolled down her cheek; Miles, disturbed, had laid a
comforting hand on her shoulder, but she'd pulled away from
him and walked on without looking at him, saying "It's
going to be all right, Miles. Just do what Julian says."

Miles dropped back to walk at Julian's side. "What's going
on? Near as you can tell."

"This may be hard for you to believe," Julian said, "but I
don't think you're from here."

"Not from where, exactly?"

"This universe. If I was reading right, there's a quantum
flux in your cellular RNA and we need to confirm it with a
deeper scan. Your quantum signature may not be the same
as--"

"Quantum signature? My cells have the same quantum
signature everybody else's do."

"Everybody in your universe, I'm sure."

"MY uni--wait. Commander Worf..."

"Commander Worf."

"The quantum fissure?"

"The quantum fissure."

"But I haven't been anywhere *near* any bloody quantum
fissure! They're invisible, but they're not undetectable."

"No, but they're not easy to detect, especially if you
don't know to look for one. We still don't know this for a
certainty. But if it isn't that..." Julian shook his head,
his brow lowering to the point of resembling a rock
outcropping more than a facial feature. "At least we'd
know...I don't know whether to hope I was interpreting the
scans correctly or not."

"Nothing *looks* different."

"You may be in a universe very near your own at the quantum
possibility level. Our timelines may have branched off
fairly recently from each other; we may parallel you quite
closely--in fact, the only significant differences up to
this point in the development of this universe may revolve
largely around you."

"Not closely enough. If I have switched places with...with
your Miles...my Julian is probably a wreck, like poor Keiko
there."

Julian was silent a moment, his eyes trained on Keiko,
walking a few meters ahead of them, her steps anxious and
quick. Julian said quietly "You called me 'love'..."

"That's what I always call you." Miles paused, and said
very softly "Even when we're arguing."

"He's your husband."

"For a long time, yes, as I told Keiko. And now he's got
some lunatic Irishman in bed with him demanding the
whereabouts of their legal sister. And it gets worse."

"Keiko's your legal--wait. How worse?"

"Julian and I pretty much always sleep naked."

Julian's eyes got larger than usual, and he clamped his
lips together in a mighty effort to keep from breaking out
in laughter. He was careful not to allow his stride or his
hold on Molly to be affected.

"You really think this is funny?"

Julian sobered abruptly. "No, of course it isn't. I
just...the mental picture..."

Miles managed to smile a little. "Don't think your
fellow'll take it well?"

"Let's just say I hope you still *have* a husband once we
get you home."

"Yeah. Me too. Julian--if we're not married here, then
Molly--and the baby--"

Holding Molly in one arm, Julian used the other hand to
grasp Miles's shoulder firmly. "Stay calm. We'll find out
what's happened and do whatever needs to be done about it."

"But Molly isn't yours?"

"Molly is your and Keiko's daughter. The baby is your son
with Keiko, Kirayoshi."

Miles stumbled. Julian caught his arm and steadied him.
"Easy, easy...come on. Let's get to the infirmary and run
the scans. Then we'll know whether that's what's happened,
one way or another. We may need some verification from Dax,
but that won't take a moment, either."

They reached the infirmary, and Julian settled Molly on a
biobed before going to another, gesturing Miles up, and
starting several deep scans.

Dax came in, with her hair loose, looking rumpled. "What's
going on, Julian?"

"Look at this."

"What am I supposed to be see--wait. I see it."

"Is it what I think it is?"

"It looks like it might be...a quantum flux...? You picked
it up somewhere at the cellular level..."

"RNA."

"If it is, then..." she turned her head and looked at the
knotted-up Miles. "Chief...?"

"I'm Chief O'Brien, but it's beginning to shape up I'm not
the one you know."

At that point, Sisko came in. "Your comm message was rather
vague, doctor; would someone please bring me up to speed?"

Jadzia and Julian looked at each other, then back at Sisko.
Jadzia began an explanation. Soon, she was headed, with
Sisko and the Chief, down to her lab; in short order, Sisko
was dispatched to speak to Keiko.

"I don't have any idea yet," Jadzia was simmering, walking
up and down the confines of her lab, "what it was that
created the fissure, but it has to have occurred here; the
coincidence is just too great."

"I'll second you. But--"

"Chief--" Jadzia turned suddenly. "There's no reason for
you to wait around here and watch me tear apart my data and
methods from step one, plus this area could be dangerous
for you. It might be that your signature isn't relevant in
this equation, it being our Miles who was exposed to the
fissure, but it might not be. I'll need you later on; at
the moment--"

"--I'm not worth my counter space, I understand," Miles
said, jumping off the console. "It's just...I'm not really
sure what to do now. Keiko's made it pretty clear she won't
want me in her quarters, now she knows I'm not her
Miles--and it would be rough on Molly, me all restrained
and not really sure who she is. If I'm not married to
Julian..."

"I think Julian would be glad to have you. He and our Miles
are very close--and I think he's trusting his counterpart
to take care of his best friend while he takes care of you.
Julian knows how traumatic this must be."

"And he knows I'm not his best friend."

"Miles, you're married to Julian on your side. You must be
aware he's a healer ahead of everything else."

"Aye. He is that."

"Dax to Bashir."

"Bashir here."

"What would you think about having a guest from another
universe for a while?"

There was a silence. Then, "I'd be pleased," the doctor
said, in a warm tone that surprised Miles but apparently
not Jadzia; she smiled slightly.

"Good," she said. "I'll send him up to you in the
infirmary. Did the scan results come through to you?"

"I've got them. For once I wish I weren't such a good
guesser."

"At least I've not gone barmy," Miles muttered inaudibly.
"I'm just in the wrong bloody universe is all."

"Me too, Julian," Dax replied, all but tonelessly. "I
probably won't have anything for you much before morning.
Where's Keiko?"

"Still here. I've called Major Kira to come take her back
to her quarters and stay with her and the children if it
seems there's need."

"Good idea. You'll hear from me the second I find anything
worth reporting. Dax out."

"Bashir out."

There was a brief silence.

"Well. Thanks ahead of time," Miles said, extending his
hand to Dax, who took it and grasped it firmly in both of
hers. He searched her face a moment, but this wasn't his
sister, his daughters' mother, though she obviously knew
him, and cared about him--or about her own version of him.
There was something missing in her expression, as there had
been in the way Julian had looked at him--he closed his
eyes, pulling his hand from hers and rubbing his forehead.
"I'll...see you later."

"Take it easy, Chief. As easy as you can."

"Right." The door closed behind him.

Keiko and the girls--the children--were gone when he
reached the infirmary; Julian was standing in front of a
readout panel, arms folded, drumming the fingers of his
right hand on his left arm. He looked over as Miles walked
in. "Hello, Chief. Just going over Dax's results. We don't
*think* you'll be affected, with the fissure gone and your
signature stable, by subspace field pulses, but we don't
want to take any chances--we may use one in the final
solution, but until then we've got to keep you away from
them. We need to get you out of here, for instance, before
someone on my staff activates something inimical. The
pulses affected Worf every time he was near one, though the
relevant fissure was naturally occurring and still open in
his case."

"That'll make it impossible for me to work," Miles started
to protest, then caught himself and shook his head. "This
is making me daft. Like that should be my biggest worry."

"What's worrying *me* right at the moment is that there
isn't anything in crew and staff quarters in the habitat
ring that should produce such a pulse close enough to
affect you--you'd about have to be in the same room with
it. But there was something in the O'Brien's quarters that
generated enough of one to bump you and our Miles over a
quantum possibility or two, and I'd like to know what."

"You'd have to ask him that, or your Keiko. There's nothing
in our quarters that--in my own Julian's and my quarters, I
mean--that would generate one, and *I* wasn't exposed to
the fissure we're presupposing. Whatever caused the pulse
has got to be here."

"After you woke and found you were here, did you have any
faintness, dizzy spells, that sort of thing?"

"No, none."

"You still might have been bumped more than once while you
were asleep. I'm sure Dax is considering that, and I don't
even know if it would make any difference; that's her, and
your, department. But I'll send her a note to be sure."
Julian spent ten seconds doing so, tapped the send control,
and said "I also suggested she speak with Commander Worf.
We don't know that his experience is totally relevant, but
it can't hurt."

"Y'know who might be able to help? Commander Data."

"Good idea. We'll see about routing him a subspace message
in the morning. I know this sounds silly, in light of
what's happened, but it'd probably be best for us to get
some rest. Especially you."

"Do you really think I could sleep?"

"I've got a hypospray that could talk you into it."
"Never mind. I'll try."

"Good." Julian locked the computer station down and made an
after-you gesture to Miles, who just stared at him. Julian
grimaced at his faux pas and said "Of course. Forgive me,
Miles. This way."

They stepped onto the lift. "What are we going to tell my
staff?" Miles wondered to himself.

"The truth leaps to mind."

"Wouldn't that make it pretty hard on Keiko?"

"I think your people, with the possible exception of Rom,
would know better than to throw themselves in her face with
condolence wreaths just yet."

"Love--sorry, 'Julian'--if anyone knows, the whole place is
going to know. It's not just my staff."

"You have a point. Well...we'll come up with something.
Perhaps a visit to Bajor for a bit..."

Miles shook his head. "If she's anything like my Keiko," he
said as they stepped off the lift, "she'll never go, not
until she gets her husband back. The Keiko I know would
throttle anyone who suggested she go off somewhere not
knowing where Jadzia is or if they'll ever see each other
again."

Julian stopped. So did Miles. "Jadzia?" Julian said.

"Jadzia. They've been married...about four years, on my
side. A happier couple I've never seen, except us. Me and
my Julian, I mean."

"And Keiko is your legal sister." They started walking
again.

"All four of us are in on it. Our baby girl...you did some
lovely genetic recombination and Iko belongs to us all.
Molly does too, but genetically she's yours and mine."

"I'd gathered. Who carried her?"

"You wanted to, but I talked you out of it. A woman as
skinny as you might've stood a fighting chance, but you'd
have wound up a permanent sickbay resident and I don't mean
the doctor kind. You oversaw her gestation, on the
Enterprise, ex vivo."

"The Enterprise...so we met there."

"You were finishing your internship. I was transporter
Chief. Data introduced us and about a month later you asked
me to move in with you."

"Miles..." Julian was covering his mouth with one hand.
"I'm so sorry. This is NOT funny...but if you knew what my
relationship with my Miles was like--it's well-nigh
unbelievable that we could be *married*, in any reality at
all."

"Notion's that distasteful to you?"

"Actually, no. It's my Miles who'd be around the bend."

"Damn." Miles spoke the word almost below the threshold of
hearing.

Julian heard it. "Worried about him? Me? I mean, your
Julian."

"Very."

"He knows by now what's happening, surely, since you say
there was the same example in your universe of this
phenomenon. He'll look after your counterpart, as much as
my Miles will let him; but with Keiko and Dax there for
him, your Julian is in much better case than you are right
now."

"Your Jadzia said something like that. That my Julian would
be looking out for your Miles, and expecting you to do the
same for me."

"That does sound like me. She knows me too well by now."

"On my side, she knows you even better."

"Here we are." Julian entered the door code and they went
in.

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

It was still a few hours until Alpha shift by the time
Miles returned to his--or that other fellow's, Miles
thought--quarters. He hadn't wanted to go back there at
first, insisting that it would be too rough on Julian, and
made noises about staying in some empty quarters. Jadzia
had insisted that the doctor would want to keep an eye on
him, make sure he was all right, but if Miles refused that
plan, he should stay with her and Keiko. The idea of being
that close to a Keiko who wasn't *his* Keiko appealed to
Miles even less, but at Jadzia's genuine concern, Miles had
decided, after a few minutes of exhausted thought, that she
was probably right. If he himself *were* the causative
Miles in this equation, he shouldn't be alone in case,
against all their predictions, there were any further
shifts.

He stopped in the front room. Julian was lying on the
larger sofa, still dressed, apparently sound asleep. Miles
hesitated; he'd been going to take the couch. But waking
Julian up right now would bring the full knowledge of the
fact that his husband was missing--for how long, no one
knew--raining back down on him. 'That wouldn't be the
greatest kindness I've ever done anyone,' he thought.

The point was turning out moot, however. Julian stirred,
then inhaled hugely and stretched. As he started to sit up,
Miles was at a loss as to what to say.

Well, go with the obvious. "Did I wake you?"

"Hm?" Julian's eyes focused on him, and he blinked a couple
of times, then closed his eyes and set his fists against
them, rubbing carefully. "I'm not sure. Probably. You will
be staying here, then?"

"F'you'll have me. I don't want to make things any harder
on you than they already are."

"No." Julian swung his legs down and sat up, looking up
again. "I don't know why--perhaps I shouldn't--but I'd
rather have you nearby than somewhere I couldn't keep check
on you whenever I got to worrying. If you have any dizzy
spells, or if you faint, it would probably mean another
shift is occurring. I'll rig a monitor for you in the
morning. Meantime, we can hope that you'll wake up as you
did before, if it happens while you're sleeping, and if you
wake and things have changed *again*...at least we'd know
once you were awake."

"Dax said that'd be your view of things."

"She knows me too well. Let me get a few things out of the
bedroom, I'll set a tricorder to monitor your quantum
signature--that at least *might* give us some warning if
your signature should slide back into flux--and then you
can get some rest." Julian stood up.

"No, don't do that. I'm not going to drive you out of your
bedroom; we don't know how long this might last." 'Way to
go, O'Brien, anything any more insensitive that you could
possibly have said?' "I'll take the sofa."

"You *hate* sleeping on this sofa."

"Um. Know about that, do you?"

"Of course. I'll only be a moment." Julian got up and
headed for the bedroom. Unsurely, Miles followed him.

Julian had already set the tricorder and placed it next to
the bed; he was now pulling things out of the dresser. "By
the way," he said, dumping his pile of clothes on the bed
and going into the bathroom to rummage around, "we're
supposed to take the girls tomorrow night. Being with Keiko
must be difficult enough for you; how about Molly and Iko?"

"I...don't want to interrupt your routine, if we can avoid
it."

Julian turned around and looked back out into the bedroom
at him, just looked, for a few moments. Then he said "No.
They'd best stay with Jadz and Keiko. If not for you, for
Molly; it would be difficult for her to understand that
you're not her daddy, and we don't need you spooking again
when you get a good look at her. Not that I blame you, if
your Molly is Keiko's daughter and not mine."

"You've got an excellent point."

"We like to keep them together, so Iko will stay there,
too." He came back out and took his clothing pile in his
free hand. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Right. Listen--thank you. This must be terrifically
painful for you; I know how I'd feel if it were Keiko."

Julian managed to smile slightly. "Think nothing of it. My
counterpart, and your Keiko, would never forgive me if I
didn't look out for you, to say nothing of forgiving
myself." He turned and left the room, but bumped the
control that kept the door open with his elbow on his way
through.

Miles sank down on the bed and breathed for a few moments.
Then he got up and checked the dresser; he found a set of
his usual blue pajamas, but from the way he nearly couldn't
unfold the misbegotten things they hadn't been worn in some
time.

He changed into them, then lay down and called the lights
off. His gaze fixed on the little lights of the tricorder
set next to him. He expected to be awake the rest of the
night, but as tired as he was by this time, it wasn't long
before he dropped off, thoughts a whirl of concern for
Keiko and the children, and for himself, and that other
Miles's family, who were being just awfully good to him. He
knew his counterpart would be receiving the same gentle
treatment as he was, but still...

Sometime later, he became aware he was hearing a soft
sound, but he didn't wake up to the point that he could sit
up and figure out what it was. It was plaintive,
distressed; he knew he'd heard it, or something like it,
before...

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

"Can I get you anything before we lie down? I know." Julian
went to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle. "Just as you
like it. Light single malt from the highlands."

"That came all the way from Earth? I couldn't."

"It's yours. You left it here for convenience's sake."

"Oh. Well, maybe I could."

"So could I." Julian was pouring two small glasses full; he
restoppered the bottle and came over to the sofa with both
glasses. "Here."

"Thanks." Miles downed a sip. "Jadzia said that you're
close with your Miles. Best friends."

"That's right. He hated the very sound of my voice once we
met, and for a while, but we went through a few things
together, and had a chance meeting and wound up playing
racquetball like madmen for it, while Keiko was away on
Bajor. We started in playing holosuite games as a matter of
sheer survival. It felt like my arm was going to drop off."

"*Your* arm? Did you play every day?"

"No, but often enough, why?"

"My Julian and I play, too--and I find it hard to believe
you wouldn't outlast fifty of me, never mind being
genetically enhanced, you're twelve years younger--"

Julian sat bolt upright, his beverage slopping over his
hand. "WHAT?!"

"What's--? Oh, no--I'm not married to you here, you
wouldn't have told me you were--Lord, love, don't faint on
me. Breathe. Take a deep breath."

Julian swallowed and said "I'm glad this came up while we
were private. No, my Miles doesn't know. No one does. I'd
accepted the probability I'd never get married, since I
couldn't reveal that I was--that, to anyone at all, and
it's unfair to keep such a thing from one's spouse. Not to
mention the issue of...issue. My haploid cells aren't
affected by the treatments I had."

"My Julian was worried about that, too. He ran so many
tests on our recombined DNA I'm amazed Molly didn't come
out looking like a baby tricorder or something."

"But Molly--she's not like--"

"A more beautiful little girl has yet to be born. Or
decanted, I suppose. She's perfectly normal for her age,
except for being quicker than most of her mates."

"Thank God." Julian set his glass down on the low table in
front of them and started shaking his hand dry. "As much
for me, I'm afraid, as for her."

"It's all right, love. Sorry. Julian."

"Forget it. If that's all you ever call him, there's going
to be the occasional slip. You've enough to worry about
without fretting over that." Julian picked his glass back
up and was quiet a moment. "You two are happy?"

"Oh, we fight. No marriage is perfect. But I can't imagine
being without him for the rest of my life. Even less can I
imagine him being without me; he's the most fanciful
creature alive. He needs me."

Julian laughed softly, staring into his glass. "That's not
exactly what my Miles says. He means the same thing,
though, I think."

"How's he word it?"

Julian thought, then imitated Miles's brogue and said
"'Shut UP, Julian, ye daft little half-baked mock-heroic
bloody arrogant self-important--'"

"Enough!" Miles waved Julian silent, torn between laughter
and a grimace. "Lord God almighty. I guess your Miles has
no truck with bottling everything up, does he?"

"And you do?"

"I don't know. I haven't most of my life, but when you live
with...um, you...you learn the importance of keeping a cool
head."

"Because your Julian is the most fanciful creature alive."

"I wasn't too sure about it at first, but when I got to
know him better it didn't come across so badly. I actually
find it charming now."

"I'm astounded. Your counterpart--or, if we're not lucky,
one of your counterparts--finds me tremendously irritating."

"Don't believe him. Why would he be your best friend if he
found you all that annoying? He probably just can't think
of another way to deal with how he feels about you, since
he's married to Keiko. Happily, I take it?"

"Oh, very much so. You know, something tells me that
perhaps your Julian didn't learn to knock his own self in
the head when he needed it, due to your presence and
extreme willingness to do it for him."

"Maybe. He's...well, to be honest, he's something of an
enfant terrible."

"How so?"

"He's brilliant, known to practically every medical
professional in the Federation for the breakthroughs that
come on the heels of his research projects, the way he
single-handedly invents treatments, even cures, for
afflictions he runs into that don't have any; but for all
that, he's one of the most patient-friendly doctors there
are. He really invests himself in the people he takes care
of."

"But he's a tad...unstable?"

"I wouldn't go that far, but...being set to high gain like
that all the time, and being so wound up in the people he
treats--I can see why it takes it out of him, why he gets
frayed from time to time. When he's upset...it happens
pretty rarely, but when it does it's downright scary, for
everyone but me. For one thing, anything that would put him
in a black mood is probably enough to put everybody in one,
and for another he gets--so far from himself, snide,
distant even from his patients--it's bloody intimidating."

"That *does* sound like the way I've been told I can come
across on a very bad day."

"Arrogant. Removed. All your qualities without the...the
innocence, the gentleness and compassion, that make them
charming instead of overwhelming."

"I wonder if I'd be the relaxed, personable fellow I am if
I had you to monitor me, didn't have to do it myself."

"He's personable, too, most of the time. Not stuck on
himself or anything."

"When did you meet him? Have you been standing in for his
common sense from the moment he arrived on the Enterprise?"

Miles thought. "Close. I met him...not too long after he
arrived. A few weeks later we were, um..."

"Intimate."

"Right...he's got plenty of sense, but as you say, it's
anything but common. And you do seem a bit more...don't
take this the wrong way. Mature."

Julian grinned. "I hope you only mean older than *he*
seems."

"That's what I mean. You act your age. Because except when
it comes to medicine and his patients, for whom he'd
forswear oxygen and otherwise lay down his life, he acts
like he doesn't know what to do with that unbelievable
brain of his but wonder, dream, plot and plan...well, you
know."

"And comment on everything he observes."

"You wouldn't happen to have met him, would you?"

"Here and there." Julian laughed along with Miles, though
there were grim overtones to the sound on both their parts.
"I begin to think that the point where our universe
diverged from yours, that would be closest to you
personally...Julian and Keiko both had choices to make. I
made a choice that kept me on Earth for my internship.
Keiko made a choice that landed her on the Enterprise.
Evidently, we switched choices in your universe. There are
probably timelines in which Keiko and I were both on the
Enterprise, and both on Earth. I wonder if that means
you've been bumped more than once."

"You'd have to ask Jadzia."

"Or, as you said, Commander Data. Excellent idea, by the
way."

"Sometimes I think that if he doesn't already know
everything, it's only because everything hasn't happened
yet. He's as curious as they come. You're that curious. You
just *distract* so bloody easily, except in medical
matters."

"That being one of the other reasons your Julian needs you?"

"Sorry. I know you're not him, and this is a different
universe, and all our lives have been totally divergent
from what I know--for the last...however many years,
exactly. And neither you nor I are the same as we'd've been
as if Keiko and you had chosen differently. It's just that
you're so like him, albeit with an aura of...authority that
he doesn't have. Not so strongly."

"Maybe he just doesn't have it with you."

"That's possible, I suppose, but I doubt it, from what I
know."

Julian took another sip. "And you'd know, if you've been
married that long...imagine. Me, with two daughters. You
must love each other very much."

"We do. Your Miles doesn't feel that way about you?"

"It's hard to say. It's not the kind of thing he could
easily tell me, whether he were feeling it or not, but it's
how I feel about him. Oh, perhaps not so emphatically. In
any case, he was married to Keiko when we met, so our
relationship never went in that direction. But outside work
and the private time he spends with his family, we're
inseparable."

"Do you think it might have, otherwise? Gone in that
direction, I mean."

"I never thought about it. As things stand now, I couldn't
see it. But I can think of worse people I could have
married."

"Your ballerina?"

"Well...I don't regret that choice, as I've told you--or as
I've told him. Though I still think of her sometimes and
wonder at myself. But I doubt that my genetic background is
something I could ever have told her, and apparently I felt
secure enough with you that I did. I still find it amazing
that there's a universe anywhere at all in which I told
*anyone* that."

"Your parents and I are the only ones who know, besides
you."

"What did my parents think of my marrying you, by the way?"

"They were stunned. So were mine. Nobody figured me for
marrying a man, and no one figured you for marrying at all."

"But they were accepting?"

"Once they were done being shocked, your parents were
ecstatic. Mine were a bit disturbed, but they came around
once they met you. Two of my cousins are still green with
envy."

Julian smiled slightly. "Then we didn't meet them here on
the station?"

"We went to Earth for not quite a week."

"You and Keiko haven't even done that. Hm. Well, I suppose
I should let you get to bed. I'll take the couch."

"No, I will."

"You hate my couch."

"I do?"

"But I don't. Let me just collect a few things and we'll
get some sleep."

Miles sat staring at his own clasped hands while Julian
rummaged in the bedroom. When the other man came back out,
dropping his appropriations in a chair, he asked quietly
"Miles. Are you all right? Any dizziness?"

"No. But I almost wish I'd been...how did you put it,
'bumped' farther than one, or more likely a few, steps away
from my own universe."

Julian gazed at him, then came over and sat next to him, a
little closer than before. "Why?"

"You're so *very* like him. Everything is so nearly the
same. It would be easier to believe, to remember what's
happening, easier not to doubt my perceptions--my
sanity--if things were only a little more different. If you
weren't here, or weren't so--" he paused, still staring.

Julian said softly "I understand. But I've *been* to an
alternate reality that was quite different from ours, and
trust me, you wouldn't want to visit it."

"Aye, you and Nerys, I know."

"Not that I'm going to hold forth on how you should
consider yourself lucky, or any such rot as that. If
there's anyone alive who shouldn't have to endure this,
it's you, after all you've been through. The reason Keiko
was asking you the questions she was is that you've
recently been having flashbacks and memory disturbances
again--though not to the degree you were before, and you
were responding well to the treatments I was giving you.
Was that happening on your side as well?"

Miles nodded silently.

"Then we'll maintain the treatments while you're here.
Twice weekly medication and...I suppose you'll skip the
talk therapy. You have far more immediate problems, and the
medication was controlling your nightmares and flashbacks
well enough for the short term."

"Won't argue with that."

They were quiet a moment. Finally Julian said "Well. You've
the run of the place. And if anyone can get anything he
wants out of these spectacular examples of replicator
technology we're blessed with here on the station, it's
you."

Miles smiled. Then he looked down again, silent, and then
stood up. Julian followed suit.

"If I weren't," Miles said quietly, "so nervous about
forgetting what's happened in my sleep, waking up with you
next to me, and having it all land on my head again...I'd
ask you to join me. I'm not well pleased being alone in
this situation--with me asleep, there's no real way to tell
if there've been any more quantum shifts. You *could*,
despite all our hopes, wind up with an even farther-flung
specimen of Miles O'Brien in your bedroom tomorrow."

"I've thought about that. Dax and I can rig a monitor to
alert the area if your quantum signature should slide back
into flux. In the meantime, I can set a tricorder to
monitor you in a rough-and-ready fashion. For any more
assurance than that, we'll have to rely on our predictions;
the infirmary isn't safe. We'll hope another such
transition would wake you up again. Leave the bedroom door
open; if you feel anything odd--beyond what you are right
now, I mean--"

"I'll give a yell."

"Good. I think--if you're interested--I've still got some
of your pajamas in the dresser from when they were
installing the soundproofing in the floor in your quarters.
Bottom drawer."

"Thanks. I think I *would* be more comfortable, against all
logic."

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

The next morning, Miles was unsurprised to learn that
Julian knew everything about what Miles liked for
breakfast--eggs over easy, three strips of bacon, a side of
corn beef hash--and how he liked it prepared. No shock, his
own Julian would likely have known that much. But he was a
little rocked when Julian shot him in the neck with a
hypospray.

"What was that?"

"Your biweekly andelizine shot, and your supplements. You
did say you were taking these on your side too, didn't you?"

"Um, yes, except for the supplements. I just wasn't
expecting it over breakfast. Have to go down to the
infirmary for it on my side."

"Oh...yes, I suppose you would. Andelizine isn't something
you can leave to the patient to administer."

The comm warbled. "Dax to Bashir."

"Hello, Jadz. You have anything for us yet?"

"For one thing, if you'll meet me in the infirmary, you can
help me program this monitor for Miles."

"You've already got it built?"

"That part was actually pretty easy. Programming it, I'll
need your help. I also have a little general progress to
report--but first, do we still have the same Miles we had
last night?"

"Tricorder says so, and according to him, nothing has
changed. He says that as far as he can tell he's in the
same universe as he was before."

"Great. Listen; I had an idea. I think we can rig this
thing not only to monitor him, but the area--we can arrange
it to detect subspace field pulses at a greater distance
than would be required to affect his quantum signature.
He'd have advance warning if he was standing too close to
something like an imaging scanner--the most common
component on the station that generates such a pulse."

"That's wonderful, Jadz. We're just finishing breakfast.
Meet us in ten minutes."

"Ten minutes. Dax out."

"That's something of a relief," Julian said as they cleaned
up. "As we said, such pulses may have no effect on you, but
I wasn't looking forward to relying on that."

"Me neither."

"Hold on one moment." Julian touched his badge. "Bashir to
Ishikawa."

"Ishikawa. Julian?"

"I just wanted to let you know we're still guesting the
same visitor, and we're meeting Jadz in a moment to program
a monitor for him that'll keep watch on his quantum
signature and warn of subspace field pulses while they're
still outside his safe radius."

"Thank God. Did Jadzia say anything about whether she's
making any progress reproducing the circumstances that
landed him here?"

"She said she had some small progress to inform us of
beyond the monitor. We're meeting her in the infirmary."

"I was just on my way to drop the girls off. I'll meet you
there too."

"Right."

As they left, silent, Miles scanned the corridors and the
promenade for anything that looked different. Still
nothing. He decided it was in fact safe to go with the
assumption that he hadn't made any more trips in his sleep.

He almost didn't notice Rom until it was too late. The
Ferengi was hurrying across one of the spoke walkways
toward him, carrying something--"Chief! I finished the work
you wanted done on this diagnostic projector. It took me
half the night, but--"

Miles froze. Julian saw it and jumped in front of him.
"Rom! Don't come any closer with that! Whatever it is, it
isn't activated, is it?"

Rom froze in place and stared down at the boxy instrument
he held as though it had suddenly metamorphosed into a
particularly ugly Cardassian vole. "Uhhhhmmmm...no."

"Good job, getting it done so quickly," Miles said over
Julian's shoulder. "Just take it to my workroom and I'll
see about checking it later."

"Uhhhhmm...right, Chief." Blinking dazedly, Rom turned and
headed back toward the main floor of the promenade.

"Thank God I didn't drag you into the lab for anything,"
Julian said. "There's an imaging scanner in there that's
running half the time; one of my staff is usually working
on something with the main lab computer."

"And half our maintenance diagnostic tools use them," Miles
concurred as they proceeded. "I did notice that Dax didn't
employ anything with an image display to check my quantum
resonance last night; it must've occurred to her."

"Well, it didn't to me. We're only lucky I didn't use
anything in my scans, while your signature was still in
flux, that has that sort of display. You'd better keep
alert for things like that; I won't know what to look for."

"Right."

In the infirmary, they cut straight for Julian's office,
avoiding the active lab screens, though none of the nearby
scanners seemed to be active to Miles.

Jadzia was already in there. She looked up from the desk,
where she was adjusting a small contraption that was
surrounded by numerous other diminutive parts. "Miles,
would you take a look at this while Julian and I program
the brain with your signature and vitals?"

"Sure." Miles took the chair she vacated and examined the
little thing--using a lensed jeweler's glass rather than
the usual engineering microscanner. "Comman--Jadzia, did
you have to replicate this?"

"No. My lab's not that big, and I sometimes have projects
working in there fairly close together; when I need to
minimize interference, sometimes it's useful to have tools
that don't produce any energy readings of their own. Beyond
matter's normal EM field, I mean."

"Very true." He glanced up. "It looks functional, and all
of a piece."

"Good." Julian was on his way out with the tool's brain and
Jadzia. "We won't be a moment. Jadz, do you think we can
fit it into a standard cortical monitor casing? It would be
most out of his way on the parietal bone, and the casing
would protect it well."

"Why do you think I made it so small?"

While they were gone, Miles continued perusing the little
item. Well, in this universe or his own, Jadzia Dax was a
wizard with delicate--and sometimes less than
delicate--circuitry. He could have built the device, with
input from Julian, but he didn't think he could have
created it so quickly this small.

In short order the two were back. Julian handed him the
monitor casing, and he and Jadzia inserted the brain,
checked the power and connections with various tools that
didn't have graphic displays, and sealed it in the casing.

"Miles, stay here. I'm going to check the subspace field
pulse alarm." Jadzia scooped the little device off the desk.

Miles nodded. He and Julian, Miles in the chair and Julian
leaning on the desk with his arms noncommittally folded,
waited.

A high-pitched whine sounded somewhere in the depths of the
infirmary, then cut off abruptly. Jadzia was back a few
seconds later. "All yours," she smiled at Julian, holding
out the little device. He took it from her and turned
Miles's head away from him with a fingertip, and attached
the monitor at the base of his skull, left-hand side. It
beeped softly as it activated.

"Well," Miles said, probing at it lightly, "I'm a bit more
relaxed."

Jadzia nodded sympathetically "I can imagine. You must have
been worried you'd wind up in a new universe every time you
passed the wrong component. Especially after what happened
to Julian and Nerys."

"It wasn't a pleasant thought, no, you're right."

"Hello?" Keiko was standing outside the door, peeking
around it.

Jadzia immediately turned and held her arm out; Keiko moved
into it, saying "Honey...oh, you look exhausted."

"I think I will head home for a nap after I call Benjamin.
Did you drop the girls at daycare?"

"Yes, that's why it took me so long to get here. Miles has
his monitor?"

"Right here," Miles said, tapping the casing. "And it works
like we were planning, near as our tests showed. Thanks,
Jadzia. I'll rest a bit easier now."

"But we still need to keep you away from those pulses for
the time being, don't forget," Julian enjoined him,
unsmiling.

Miles just nodded. He was busy trying not to stare at Keiko.

Keiko was saying "I have a lecture to give on Bajoran
deciduous and perennials, but I'm not sure I'll be able to
concentrate. What was the progress you were going to tell
us about, Jadzia?"

"I think I've found what made that other Jadzia think she
might be able to analyze wormhole space and matter at the
quantum level. I wish Miles had been in on her thought
process from the beginning, but I believe that he's already
given me most of the information he can. The ideas
are...distinctive."

"Idiosyncratically yours, you mean," Keiko said, smiling a
little.

"That's one way to put it. Miles, later this afternoon, I'd
like you to come and take a look at what I'm doing. If I'm
anywhere in the right neighborhood, you should be able to
see some similarities to your Jadzia's work by then, even
if at a primitive level."

"Just call me when you're ready."

Jadzia leaned over the desk and squeezed the Chief's hand.
"Stay out of harm's way today, okay?"

"Oh, no need to tell me twice."

"I'll talk to one of your section Chiefs and tell her
you're not feeling well, that Julian told you to take some
time off." Jadzia released his hand, let her arm drop from
around Keiko and took Julian's shoulders, pulling him in
for a hug. He hugged back with something that looked to
Miles like desperation. She didn't say anything. When she
kissed his cheek and let him go, turning to collect the
leftovers and diagnostic tools from the desk, Keiko came up
and hugged him too. As she was releasing him, she looked at
Miles, with what was likely intended to be a reassuring
smile; then she turned and followed Jadzia out of the
office.

Julian was quiet a moment, leaning now against the wall. He
finally said "The safest place for you is likely our
quarters. I'm not happy having you that far out of my
reach, but I can't completely absent myself from the
infirmary today."

Miles nodded. "I'll just return there, then."

"I'd like you to tell the computer to call me if that alarm
goes off, and every hour or so, you call me, and tell me
you're still here."

"I'll do that." Miles stood up, feeling there was something
he should do or say, some reassurance he should offer this
quiet and mirthless doppelganger of his friend. He wasn't
sure why he felt that way; he hadn't had that impulse with
Jadzia or Keiko. 'Perhaps it *is* that he's so quiet,'
Miles thought as he left the infirmary, keeping his eyes
peeled and running down in his mind all the equipment and
systems he could think of that would generate a subspace
field pulse, with an eye to giving them a wide berth. 'Or
the fact that he hasn't smiled since I've seen him, except
when I thanked him. Poor blighter. He must be terrified.'

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

"There you go, all set," Julian said, taking the monitor
from Jadzia's hand and setting it in place on Miles's
parietal bone. He clapped the older man's shoulder and
smiled "I'll bet that takes a weight off your mind, eh,
Chief?"

"Mm. I was starting to jump whenever I saw an appliance
activate."

"That's not the worst instinct to have in your place. I
don't especially like sending you out of immediate
observation range, but I have a few hours worth of things
to do here and I can guarantee you imaging scanners, and
probably other dangerous items, will be involved. You'd be
better off in my quarters."

"I understand."

"I'm going to go see Keiko," Jadzia said, "find out what
she thinks about talking to you."

"I think I already know."

"I also need to find out what it was in your quarters that
initiated the jump, but...I thought that if she can bring
herself to speak with you, see that you're perfectly all
right, she might at least be more reassured about whether
her Miles is all right too."

"Oh, lovely. Then that'll only leave her wondering if
she'll ever see him again."

"I know this must be terribly frightening for her, and
seeing you does serve to underscore the absence of her
husband...I just have a feeling it'll do more good than
harm."

"You'd know better than--damn. I was about to say that
she's your wife and you'd know about that."

"I also think," Jadzia said softly, "it might help you.
With slips like that."

"I can only pray what you're cooking up in your lab'll make
that a dead issue."

"We'll get you home, Chief." She gripped his hand briefly,
then turned and left Julian's office, running her hands
through her still-loose hair.

Julian squeezed Miles's shoulder, which he was still
holding. "She'll let you know when she needs you. I'll get
hold of one of your section Chiefs and have her pass the
word that you've got a touch of something. I'll stop and
see Keiko too, and pick up some of your things. Go on--but
be careful." He hesitated a moment, then laid his other
hand on Miles's opposite shoulder and leaned in to kiss his
cheek.

Miles shivered, then reached up and took Julian's hands,
intending to release them instantly before he got actively
dizzy, but it took him three or four breaths of holding
them hard before he could make his fingers open. He said
softly, "Thank you, Julian," then proceeded out without
looking back.

He got to Julian's quarters without incident, and paused as
the door closed behind him, getting his breath back. There
wasn't anything in crew quarters, he reminded himself, as
Julian had said, that should generate a dangerous pulse.
Miles wondered briefly why Julian knew that--his own
probably didn't, such knowledge as he had in the area being
limited to medical applications. But his own Julian had
been living with an engineer for eight or so years. Despite
what information he might have picked up for that reason,
he likely *hadn't* had as great a need to know such things,
with Miles almost constantly in attendance.

He wandered around the quarters for a bit, appreciating
similarities to what he knew, noting the differences. For
one thing, Kukalaka seemed to be absent. Perhaps this
Julian was embarrassed at his attachment to the toy and had
hidden it away. It did seem to fit in with this more
independent, mature model of the man Miles had loved for so
many years.

He sat down on the bed, gazing out the bedroom port. It
hadn't done much good for Julian to remove himself to the
sofa; Miles had slept all night with that familiar smell
saturating every breath he took, and had been quite
disoriented--and downcast--when he awoke in an incompletely
strange room to find Julian absent, and the reason came
back to him.

He didn't know if that warm, spicy scent had been more a
comfort or a further lash. Julian, yes. But a Julian who
remembered the last eight years quite differently; a Julian
who didn't love him. He sighed, supposing that wasn't quite
true; this Julian, by his own admission, loved his own
Miles, just...not the same way. That was almost more
frightening to deal with than full-bore hatred.

'Get hold of yourself, O'Brien. Worf made it back from his
experience, from a good deal farther than a few universes
from his own.' He just wished he could take a more active
hand in what was being done to bring about his return. Even
if it didn't speed things up, it would give him the
illusion he was doing something, distract him from this
pointless mental tail-chasing. But it was quite correct
that he had to be kept away from Jadzia's work until they
were sure they could control where he ended up. Pushing his
signature back into flux because he was too near her
experimentation...but then, she must have come up with a
way to shield herself from it, or remove herself from the
area, lest she also become susceptible to quantum jumps,
and endanger him too, when he came down to offer comment on
what she'd got done so far.

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

Miles came in late that afternoon from working with Jadzia
on what she'd set up so far, basically playing a game of
theoretical hot and cold, several rooms away from the
actual experiments, using displays fed by scanners at a
safe distance. Julian was back already, straddling a dining
chair, his arms folded across the back, staring out the
port.

Miles approached the silent figure cautiously. "Dax told me
there was a bit of excitement in the infirmary today."

Julian laughed shortly, not looking at him. "I blew up at
two of my technicians. Ysau took it stoically, but Annin
was nearly in tears before I was done. I've already
apologized; but now everyone thinks that you and I are
fighting."

"You always take it out on your people when you have a
disagreement with your husband?"

"No, my husband would never let me get away with it. Right
now, he'd be taking me apart piece by piece for acting like
that."

"Would you feel better?"

Julian laughed humorlessly again. "I'd probably throw
myself at you if you behaved any more like him than you
already do."

There was a brief silence, while Miles considered what best
to do--he was certainly sorry for Julian's pain, but
everything he could think of to do about it would only
exacerbate it, come through as a vicious joke on them both,
but on Julian far more.

Finally he didn't know what to say but..."Is there anything
I can do to make this easier for you?"

Julian moved himself away from the chair back a little,
letting his head drop, to stare at the floor. "Only if you
can tell me how soon you think Jadz will make any progress
toward finding out what your Jadzia was up to--toward
recreating the fissure, figuring out how to...to navigate,
control the possibility streams...?"

Miles was silent a moment, then whispered "I'm sorry. I
truly wish I could. As we've noted, my Jadzia has a far
better chance of reversing what's happened, at least within
anything like a short time."

Julian said, still facing the port, "I can't bear to have
you out of reach too long. I can't bear to have you so near
me. I can't...I can't distance myself. I know it isn't
right. But I can't."

Miles thought. "If it helps at all," he said, "if it should
happen...that I never do get home--not that my people will
give up trying, and I don't like the thought any more than
you do--there are two little girls here who need their dad.
Both their dads. I'd do my best to be here for them. I'll
do my best to be here for you, too."

"But," Julian said flatly, "you can't, in all honesty, tell
me that you'll ever love me. Not the way you love Keiko."

Miles paused, then thought to himself, 'If I *were* Julian,
what would I say? And what would I want to hear? The truth,
or a comforting lie?'

The truth, always, in either case. "No," Miles said
quietly. "I can't honestly tell you that, one way or
another. I'll always love Keiko. And it would be very hard
for me to continue as her legal brother in this universe,
rather than her husband, but she's the baby's mother.
I'd...have to learn to live with it."

"And your own children?"

Miles was silent. Finally he said, with a catch in his
breath he couldn't avoid at seriously considering the
prospect, "I think it would kill me never to see them
again. But I would do everything I could for both your
Miles's daughters."

"That's asking quite a bit from yourself."

"I'm sure my counterpart isn't sparing himself, either.
He'll do as well as he can for my children, as soon as he,
and Keiko, can bear it. I owe it to him to do my best for
his."

"You're Miles all over, all right."

"Well, I always thought so." He didn't expect a response to
the joke, and he didn't get one.

Julian took a deep breath and held it a moment. "If you'll
excuse me," he finally graveled, "I think I'd like to go
into the bedroom and be alone for a while."

"Of course."

Julian got up, moving like everything hurt, and proceeded
into the bedroom, the door swishing shut behind him. He
hadn't looked at Miles even once.

A few minutes later, sitting on Julian's chair with his
gaze fixed somewhere in the middle distance, Miles debated
leaving Julian alone or trying to offer what comfort he
could. He felt a sense of responsibility and protectiveness
for this Julian that he didn't for his own, or at least, no
more than his Julian also felt it for him. This one was
different.

'Well of course he's different,' Miles thought in
exasperation at himself. But that didn't keep him from
feeling akin to a coward for not wanting to face this
Julian's misery. He knew that his presence at this moment
could easily do as much harm, or more, as good, but he
couldn't shake the notion that he should be doing
something, that it wasn't right to simply respect Julian's
request to be alone, that he should insist...

Finally he couldn't stand it. Hoping Julian hadn't locked
the door, he got up and headed for the bedroom.

Julian didn't notice him at first. He was sitting on the
side of the bed facing away from Miles, head in his hands.
Miles came around the bed and touched his shoulder.

Julian started and gulped. He managed to get out "I said I
wanted to be left alone, blast it!"

"I know what you said." Miles sat down next to him and took
his shoulders, pulling him close, then put his arms around
Julian and gently pressed the slighter man's head down to
his own shoulder. "But *I* said that I'd be here for you."

Julian was stiff for a cold, uncertain moment, then thawed
completely in a heartbeat, sliding his arms around Miles
and hanging on in what was, in fact, Miles credited his
earlier observation, desperation.

"Shhh..." Miles rocked him slowly, stroking his back and
shoulders. "I know. You'll have him back. We'll get him
back."

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

Julian looked up from his desk terminal when Miles came in.
"There you are. I was getting ready to call you. How'd it
go?"

"For one thing, she's figured out what it was in Keiko's
quarters that produced the subspace field pulse--a hologram
imaging kit Keiko bought as a surprise for Molly. It was on
a shelf in the master bedroom closet where Molly couldn't
get at it."

"But it wasn't activated, surely."

"Not until Molly--who, whether your child or Keiko's, is a
hard girl to fool--got up there and got hold of it while
your Miles and Keiko were sleeping. She drug it just
outside the door and turned it on. When I woke up and
jumped out of bed, she heard the commotion and turned it
off, took it to her room."

"That explains everything. How's Jadzia keeping the two of
you away from any further fissures you might wind up
generating?"

"She's got us set up with readout and display units a
couple of rooms away from her lab. We're having to run
everything with remotes and automatics. It's a royal bloody
pain, but we do have a few promising avenues to follow.
Jadzia was able to eliminate a few dead ends right off. The
only problem is, as I was expecting--a lot of the theory
and applied she does down there is the universe according
to Jadzia Dax. We had to start at the beginning to make
sure I understood what she was doing. Not more complex than
I could deal with, just coming from her own special angle."
Miles plopped onto the sofa.

"I've worked with Jadzia too. I can guarantee you she's the
same in her approaches to biological and chemical matters
as she is in physics."

"And in her engineering applications. We should let her
loose on a defense network for the Bajoran system. The
Dominion would never know what hit it."

"As long as they don't kidnap *me* again in retaliation. If
it hadn't been for Kira insisting Jadzia take the Defiant
to warp inside the system...let's say I'm still trying to
live down what that damned replica of me did while I was
gone."

"*You're* trying to live it down?"

"Oh, my--was it you, in your universe? Even though you
don't live alone?"

"No, it was you--my Julian. I suppose the Dominion had to
grab the chance at a ranking station officer, when he went
to that burn-treatment conference--no matter whether it'd
be easy for the changeling to get away and regenerate. Plus
Julian's one of the few people on the station in a position
to fool a blood screen. He's not through with me about it;
he may never be. If we ever divorced, the first cause he'd
cite would be that I lived with a changeling for a month
and couldn't ever *quite* put my finger on what the devil
was wrong with my husband."

"I'm sorry..." Julian covered his face and forced his
giggles down. "It must have been horrible for you...but I
can just imagine--" Julian gave in and broke up, falling
facefirst over the desk in an embarrassed slump. "I'll
wager I know EXACTLY what his first words to you were when
he returned. 'Miles--'"

"--you *idiot*," Miles finished with him, sighing, then
finally smiling, as Julian tried to control himself enough
not to roll under the desk. "Enjoying yourself?"

"Miles, I'm sorry, I really am. It's just that I can hear
the entire argument."

"It was more of an incredulous tongue-lashing that I bore
with as much grace as I could."

"Until you finally did lose your temper."

"Right, and--" Miles looked back up toward him. "Oh, no.
I'm not about to relive it. Figure it out yourself if you
can hear the whole thing, then."

"Damn. I *am* sorry. It's no laughing matter. But it almost
seems as though it's us. That it was you and I who had that
altercation. And I always...I do laugh at 'us' a lot. We're
quite the pair, on this side of the fissure."

"We're quite the pair on my side, too. Ah, well--it very
nearly *was* you and I having that little talk. Only a
choice away, as you said."

"That's right." Quiet now, Julian sighed, staring at the
terminal screen without seeing it. "Do you think he'll ever
forgive you?"

"Oh, he already has. If nothing else, it at least provides
him with irrefutable evidence of what a thoughtless rotting
fool I am, to drag out whenever we fight."

"Do you fight much?"

"Not that kind, real fights, no. We...like to take
positions and defend them to each other. Julian said once
the main reason we got married was so we'd both have
someone to spar with all the time. Plus there's a lot to be
said for making up."

Julian chuckled. "I'm sure there is."

"As I told him, I really should have known, by how out of
his way that shapeshifter went to get along with me, that
he wasn't *my* unfailing brat of a husband."

"You said that--I mean, my Miles said something like that
to me, too."

"Not to mention that I haven't been through such a dry
spell in bed since well before we were married."

Julian flushed, his expression indicating he was feeling
the stirrings of hilarity threatening again. "Healthy
appetite, your fellow?"

"You'd think he invented it. Not a day goes by. No wonder
the changeling didn't try to copy that aspect of
things--outclassed before he could begin." Miles glanced
over and noticed Julian was face down over the desk again.
"You want details?"

"Oh, my God..."

Warming to the attack, Miles continued blithely "He came up
with a little routine we could get through in fifteen
minutes that we employed a lot while Molly was
bottle-feeding--sometimes three or four times a night--"

"Miles! Please!"

"But you look so cheerful now..."

"Just stop it! I'm behaving horribly and you're no help."

"Don't worry about it. I feel better to see you laugh."

Julian stopped fighting it and broke out in hysterics,
right into the primary stages of anoxia. "Oh, for--I can
only imagine what my Miles would say if he heard this."

"He probably IS hearing it, in some form, on my side. If he
makes it back with his virtue intact it'll be because my
Julian is sick unto death."

"You really think so?"

"If I know him. Either of them. And I do."

"Miles..." Julian got up and came down to the sofa,
collapsing on it next to the Chief. "Not that I don't want
my Miles back as much as ever--for everyone's sake, mostly
your family and his--but I think I'm going to miss you."

Miles raised his brows. "Really."

"Yes. You're a...an entire universe of possibility I'd
never considered."

"Never?"

"In many ways. But, well...actually...he and I...it was
only once..."

"Oh-ho. Do tell."

"Keiko knows about it. We did it to help him fight the
memories of Argratha; it was about five months ago."

"And?"

"And what?"

"How'd it go?"

"Oh. Um...swimmingly."

"Love, a staff meeting goes 'swimmingly'. A refit goes
'swimmingly'. This, on the other hand--"

"I thoroughly enjoyed myself," Julian cut in, smiling.

"Really now. Thoroughly."

"Thoroughly."

"Glad to hear it."

Julian reached over and took the hand Miles had on the sofa
back in both his own. "I'm sorry for Keiko and your Julian.
But I'm glad I met you, got to spend a brief time with you."

"You're pretty sure it's going to be brief."

"I have faith in Jadzia, and in you."

"Hm. You call her 'Jadz' on my side."

Julian blinked. "She hates that nickname."

"You're the only one she'll hear it from. It's sort of an
in-joke with the two of you, something to do with a time
when Keiko and I were on Bajor with Molly, back when Keiko
was first pregnant with Iko. You and Jadzia...scuffed up a
bit of dust together."

Julian's eyes widened. "In what sense?"

"Very nearly every sense that could follow from that
expression. Actually that was only the first time you two
did."

"You don't mean it."

"Oh, but I do. What, you don't find her as appealing on
this side as you do on mine?"

"I find her extremely appealing. I didn't stop chasing her
for two years. It's nice to know there's a reality out
there somewhere in which I finally caught her."

"On my side, she caught you. You were quite blown away by
the whole thing."

"I take it we told you and Keiko?"

"You couldn't even wait for Keiko and me to get home. You
called us the next morning while Jadzia was still sleeping."

"What did you two think about it?"

"We both got one look at your face and broke out laughing."

"So it didn't cause any...discord, then?"

"Far from it. It seems to have cemented us all even more
strongly." Miles's breath suddenly caught and he became
silent, looking away.

"You'll see them again," Julian said.

"I know."

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

"Dax to O'Brien."

Miles stirred, realized his impediment to rising was the
deathgrip Julian had locked on him, and quickly and
carefully untangled himself from the younger man. He got up
and hurried out into the front room, where he said quietly
"O'Brien here. Go ahead."

"I've had another idea. Can you meet me in the room we're
using near my lab?"

"Julian's only just got to sleep, and I'd hate for him to
wake and find me gone. The first thought he'd have would
probably be something along the lines of 'Who am I married
to NOW?' poor lad."

"Good point. Um...I can't send Keiko to your place, not
with the girls...I'll head down there and see what I come
up with. If it turns out I can't get anywhere without you,
I'll call again and we'll think of something. I don't want
to wake Julian if we can avoid it. He needs some rest."

"Aye that. Call me when you know anything."

"I will." The comm went quiet and Miles went back to the
bedroom. Julian had finally fallen asleep in Miles's arms,
still dressed. Rather than risk waking him, Miles had
simply settled in for the duration. Coming back now, he
unclipped his badge and set it on the table by the bed,
then sat down carefully and pulled his boots off.

When he lay back down, Julian immediately reached for him
and, apparently without waking up, reinitiated the
proprietary lock he'd had on the older man before. Miles
let his own arms settle around Julian, murmuring "You two
must be quite the affectionate couple." He hoped Julian
wouldn't be hit too hard in the morning by the memory of
what had happened, and closed his eyes.

He woke up, he didn't know how much later, because he was
having trouble breathing. Within half a second of waking,
he knew why.

"Juli--mph--" Miles squirmed a bit, managed to get hold of
Julian's shoulders and tried to get some air between his
own mouth and Julian's. "Wait--you don't remember--?"

"I *know* who you are," Julian panted, shrugged free of
Miles's restraining grip, and picked the interrupted kiss
back up, banishing whatever Miles had been going to say
next.

On the bedside table, Miles's badge beeped. "Dax to
O'Brien."

Julian slapped the badge. "He's BUSY, Jadz!"

"Oh. Sorry, Julian. It'll wait."

"Good," Julian barely muttered before pinning Miles to the
mattress again.

Miles, meanwhile, was discovering new worlds of meaning in
the word "flustered". If Julian did know who he was, as he
said, Miles could think of no convincing reason for asking
him to stop except that even so, the wisdom of this seemed
questionable. But he was fairly certain that argument
wouldn't carry much weight with Julian, judging by the
voracity with which he was pursuing his chosen course.
Before Miles could think of anything to say that might slow
him down even a little, they were both well on their way to
being naked, courtesy of the surgical deftness in Julian's
hands.

Julian whispered fiercely "You *will* love me again.
Someday. I know you will."

Another universe. Another life--another love of his life?
But for Keiko and Julian making one decision each, might it
really have been Julian after all, even in his own
universe? The thought seemed completely unrealistic...but
judging by the increasing evidence, it wasn't. This was his
bedroom, his quarters...his and his husband's. And he
didn't think he could bring himself to say no to someone
who needed him this much. Not if that someone were Julian,
at least.

He rolled Julian over and helped him finish getting rid of
their clothes.

He did love Keiko. He always would--but in this universe,
Keiko was married to someone else, while Julian needed him,
now.

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

Miles emerged from the bedroom, all showered and dressed,
only to confront the dead-to-the-world form of Julian on
the sofa. "Sorry I forgot to wake you," Miles muttered,
"didn't you tell the computer to get you up?" He stroked
Julian's hair a few times. "Come on, love."

Julian stirred, then opened his eyes. He glanced up at
Miles and yawned, covering his mouth, then tried to sit up;
he winced. "I think I know how Odo feels when he's had to
hold a shape too long."

Miles had headed for the replicator and now returned,
bearing a raktajino and a double-sweet black coffee.
"There, sit up, I'll get that for you." He set the mugs
down on the table, sat down behind Julian and attacked the
cramp that was pretzelfying the doctor.

"OW! Oh. Thank you."

"If I don't get home pretty soon we're going to have to
find me some quarters."

"I'm all right so far. That's much better." Julian shifted
his shoulders and turned his head experimentally.

"It may no longer matter," Miles said cheerfully, handing
Julian his mug. "I just spoke with Jadzia--Data's done a
good deal of research in this area, starting with Worf's
report, with an eye toward preventing similar occurrences.
He's sent her a missive full of everything he knows about
Worf's experience and everything he could extrapolate about
this particular quantum situation. She's quite excited."

"He sent a missive? I was hoping to speak with him again."

"He's out of direct link range, and will be for some
time--but Jadzia says he also sent a message to Keiko,
and..." he paused. "Keiko called me just before I got in
the shower. She wants to see me."

Julian blinked, looking like he wasn't sure how to take it.
'Only makes sense,' Miles thought. 'I'm probably coming
across as ambivalent too. He can't take my cue if I don't
give him one.' Miles managed to smile. "She says she's sure
Jadzia and I will get this cleared up soon, but she wanted
to be sure I was doing all right, anyway."

"I'm sure it's only a matter of time, too--and maybe not
much time, if Jadzia's as hopeful as you say. But I'm glad
Keiko's up to seeing you."

"Me too. I'm meeting her at the replimat for breakfast."

"Ick. Good luck. I don't know about your version of the
station, but the food at the replimat here..."

"The point's not really the food."

"Of course it isn't." Julian rested a hand on Miles's.

Miles turned his over, taking Julian's fingers and
squeezing them. "I should be going soon..."

"Right." But, that said, they continued sitting there,
finishing their respective morning poisons, until they'd
both emptied their mugs. Julian got up to get dressed and
Miles headed for the replimat.

---

"Hello, Chief," Dax said when Miles entered in response to
her summons. "Like I said, I was just meeting with
Benjamin. Good news and...a complication, but not bad news,
exactly."

"Give me the good news first."

"I'm nearly sure I know what aspect of the model generated
the artificial fissure."

"'Nearly' sure?"

"That's the complication. With the information Commander
Data sent us, combined with the research I've been doing
for half a year on this, I was able to put together a
coherent image of what must have occurred--and I was also
forced to tell Benjamin how risky it would be to attempt it
again on the station; apparently we were just lucky last
time that a lot worse didn't happen. The dangers are mostly
in that the fissure would be anchored to a particular space
relative to the station. Since it stretches across quantum
realities, we could wind up with it slamming through the
station, at a healthy percentage c, in one or more
realities--leaving people with quantum signatures in its
wake that are ripe to get bounced, like you, at the first
subspace field pulse they encounter. Plus ship traffic is
high here, and must be in at least some of the other
realities, like yours."

"So where in space do you have in mind, then?"

"Almost anywhere there's a good-sized patch of hard vacuum,
little traffic. Somewhere far from the wormhole. It's not
perfect, but it's the best we can do."

"Well, not on board the Defiant? Or a runabout? If spatial
relativity is a problem."

"No, outside it--we're going to try to generate the fissure
a distance from the ship, scan it for your quantum
signature using a subspace differential pulse, and, once
we've found it--well, before we get that far, we'll have to
try to fathom the method that other universe's Enterprise
crew was originally going to use to return Worf--all of
them--to their own timelines. What they ended up actually
doing, you see..."

"Right, it was a last-ditch maneuver to seal up all the
millions of realities that were intruding into their own.
Happened when the ship took damage and the differential
pulse destabilized the fissure."

"With any luck at all, nothing like that will go wrong this
time. What all this means is that we need to install the
array I was planning--or at least the relevant aspects of
it--on the Defiant."

"But you haven't even built the thing yet, have you?"

"No, but I don't think it'll take nearly as long as the
entire array would--I can be more specific, leave some
aspects for later, since at the moment all we need it for
is to generate that fissure."

"Bloody." Miles sat down abruptly in one of the console
chairs they'd dragged into the refurbished old lab. "And I
can't help, can I?"

"No. *Way* too many tools and systems involved that
generate a subspace field pulse. That alarm would be going
off constantly."

"Then I'll have to have some of my staff help you in my
place. Tell me what you need to do, and I'll tell you who
you'll need to pull off whatever they're working on."

Jadzia sat down at another console and began keying up
information.

Miles perked up. "This *does* look more streamlined than
your original plans."

"I'll have all the time in the world to work on that array.
First we need to get you back where you belong. By the
way...I hope I didn't interrupt anything?"

"When?"

"When I called you again a few minutes ago. You were having
breakfast with Keiko, weren't you?"

"We'd done, actually. I was wondering what I was going to
do with myself. This can't-get-near-half-my-own-tool-kit
business is getting old fast. How'd you know I was having
breakfast with Keiko?"

"Kira. She mentioned it in Ops. She's moved back in with
Keiko and the kids for the duration of this little problem."

"Keiko mentioned that."

"She wasn't sure Keiko's seeing you was such a good idea;
she said that Keiko insisted she wanted to, but Nerys
wasn't convinced."

"Hope she's not mentioning it to anyone else."

"No, she wouldn't want to make trouble for Keiko and Molly.
Or you. Although I've seldom seen the look she got on her
face when she found out you were married to Julian. You
know how big her eyes are already." Jadzia grinned her
secretive grin.

"Julian's been having that problem himself. I had him in
hysterics last night with a few shaggy dog stories from the
life and times of Julian Subatoi Bashir and his husband,
Miles Edward O'Brien."

Jadzia giggled. "And let me guess--he apologized for
laughing."

"Until I wanted to box him one. Finally I told him just to
go ahead and laugh because it did my heart good to see it."

"Did it?"

"Yes, in a way. Being able to cheer Julian up when he's
down--and you know how he gets when he's down, don't you?"

Jadzia nodded. "It's a pretty amazing transformation from
his usual self."

"It helps me to have to keep it together so I can help
*him*. It's just that this Julian doesn't need me in that
way so much...I can only hope my counterpart's doing as
well with mine."

Jadzia touched his shoulder. "I'm sure he's doing his best.
He won't abandon your husband, Miles."

"I hope you're right. I told Keiko I'd be here, worse come
to worst, for her and the children. She thanked me, and she
seemed a bit more chipper than I saw her last; she told me
about her Miles and asked about my Julian. I'm glad she can
bear talking with me, but I wish I could do more for her."

"That would take time. And it's my intention to see that
you don't have enough to spend outside your own quantum
reality."

"I pray to all Gods I don't."

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

"The warp field enhancer is on line, Miles."

"Got it. Are you picking up anything yet?"

"Not yet." Jadzia adjusted a couple of the readouts,
looking between several different scanner displays. "I wish
I could get in there, just for a minute..."

"Not without shutting everything down. We don't need you
bouncing all over the realm of possibility as well." Miles
got up to check a jerry-rigged relay that was--or was
supposed to be--feeding data from the lab to where they
were working at (what was hopefully) a safe distance.

"Damn it," Jadzia finally muttered. "Nothing. We ARE going
to have to shut everything down, long enough for me to get
in there and run some checks."

"Are you sure I can't get Thierry or someone up here to
help you?"

"Not at this stage. They'd be sure to ask questions, and I
don't know enough yet to keep things vague. Later on, when
I have some more specific tasks that won't require
explanations...I'll be back in a minute. We'll try it one
more time and then take a break."

"Right, Comman--Jadzia."

They could certainly do with a break, Miles mused, sitting
down and rubbing his eyes. "Or at least I could," he
muttered. Julian had kept him up half the night. Miles
could only hope he wasn't like that all the time. The
doctor had resembled nothing so much as a starving man
offered an especially tender and juicy steak. And the
"tender" part was now uncomfortably apropos.

Jadzia was back in a few minutes. "All right, let's try it
now."

They did the initial system charge, activated the monitors
and the small warp field generator that would provide them
another avenue to detect a fissure, and Jadzia activated
the array.

"Anything yet?" she asked.

"No."

"Let's take it up by two."

"Right." They increased the array's power feed.

The monitors remained stubbornly quiet and inactive.
"Another two," Jadzia said, adjusting and readjusting
everything in sight of the jerry-rigged components. "That's
all we can take it with this configuration...if it doesn't
work...I'm going to have to take it down and...set it up in
one of the alternate configs..." they worked silently for a
moment. Miles watched his monitors like a hawk, but so
far...

"Let's shut it down, Miles. I need some lunch."

"Right behind you."

As they were on their way toward the habitat ring, Miles
asked "My quarters?"

"That'd probably be the best place."

Miles noncommittally greeted several of his people who
paused to ask how he was doing; remembering he'd been
supposed to be sick, Miles made noises about being up long
enough to help the Comman--help Jadzia with a project.

"It's okay," Jadzia whispered to him as they stepped into
the lift. "You call me Commander when we're working, if
we're not alone. And you usually call me that to your
staff, or mine."

"I'll remember."

They reached Miles and Julian's quarters and went in. Miles
stopped dead and Jadzia almost banged into him from behind.
"Oh, for..." Miles shook his head in resignation, a hand to
his forehead. "I forgot."

"Wow," Jadzia said, surveying the violent tumble of
disarrayed bedclothes that were spilling out of the master
bedroom door. "I take it Julian was in high form last
night?"

Giving up, Miles replied "My Gods, Commander, he was an
animal." He started for the replicator. "Would you know
enough to know if he's always like that?"

"He's...a very passionate man."

"Is that a yes?"

"Well, as you say, to the best of my knowledge..." Jadzia
smiled. "It's a yes."

"Terrific. I can barely walk. Roast beef on wheat, and
coffee, black, double sweet." He waited, then took the
items from the replicator while Jadzia stepped up to order
chicken gumbo and a plomeek salad.

She sat down across from him. "Julian and I have made love
more than once."

Miles dropped his sandwich. "I--thought you were married to
Keiko."

"I am. But after all, it is in the family."

"Oh. I see. I think. So...you'd have some reason to know,
then."

"Julian puts a lot of himself into it whenever he does
that; but judging by what our Miles has told Keiko and
me...he takes it easy on me. It's only with you that he's
'an animal'."

"Criminey. Do you know how long my Julian chased your
counterpart on my side? He'll be green with envy of his own
alternate when I tell him."

"And *do* you intend to tell him? Everything?"

Miles pondered his answer, though he knew there could only
be one. "I guess I'll have to. I'll have to tell Keiko, and
I can't imagine keeping something like *this* from Julian.
Though I also can't imagine how I'm going to tell him."

"How do you think he'll take it?"

"He'll tease me unmercifully until I blow up, then he'll be
conciliatory and understanding until I calm down. Then
he'll start in on me again."

Jadzia smiled. "And Keiko?"

"I don't know. If I didn't have some hope she'd
understand--that it isn't about her, not in this
universe--it's about him, and the responsibilities I
believe I have to your family--I wouldn't have done it for
any reason. But I do hope I haven't pushed it too far. This
is the second time inside a year."

Jadzia looked up alertly. "The *second* time?"

"Julian and I. Half a year or so ago. It was...to help me,
you see--with Argratha and all. Julian says that did happen
to your Miles."

Jadzia nodded sympathetically.

"Well. I suppose things must not have worked the same way
here--he's married to Julian, and I never...had nightmares
about Keiko, so I guess that problem might not've come up.
Unless it was you and Keiko your Miles was having evil
dreams of."

"You were having nightmares about Julian?"

"That I'd killed him. He was...he's my best friend.
It's...something like the memories the Argrathi implanted
in my head. I guess over here, you know about them."

She nodded again, reaching out to touch his hand briefly.
"The family does. No one else."

"Even though *you* know?" Miles managed to smile.

Jadzia smiled back. "I may have my foibles, but I also have
my limits. Some things would be too indiscreet even for me."

"I'll take your word for it. In any case...I was pretty
obsessed. Julian said he'd taken the place of Ee'char in my
head, my subconscious. For a while, I *had* to see Julian
every day--make sure he was all right--and then I couldn't
stand to see him at all any more. Too painful."

"I'm sorry, Miles."

"It could've been a lot worse. He *was* a complete
muttonhead when it came to...doing that. He kept telling
me, in his sincere doctor voice, that I needed to tell him
what I thought the common thread was, what the pressures
seemed to be pushing me toward. Crikey. I wanted to break
his skull."

"And you finally had to tell him flat out?"

"I thought I *had* told him flat out, and if I'd been
anybody else he'd have seen it at once. Seen how important
it was, and why. Rather than thinking of it as...an
irrelevant aside to the problem."

Jadzia scooped more gumbo into her mouth and gazed
pensively into the distance. "I could wish there were some
way to travel to alternate universes safely. It'd be
fascinating to see the changes resulting from what seems,
to us, to be little things. Your Julian sounds interesting."

"He's much like this one. Of course, all I've seen of this
one, he's been...he's just sort of lost his husband. I'm
willing to bet the way he is now isn't typical."

"It's not. Usually you're here. If you follow me."

"The only real difference I can see...and as I said, I
don't have anything to go on that isn't slanted--your
Julian is...more intense, or at least he appears more
intense."

"Our Julian can afford to be. He has you, and Keiko and I,
two children--he's got a sea anchor. Your Julian is
probably used to keeping a very close eye on his own helm,
out of necessity."

Miles nodded. "I can see that. I know what kind of
difference a family made to me."

They ate in companionable silence for a while.

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

"Major," Miles greeted Kira from his position staring up
through a half-dissected console on the Defiant's bridge.
"Come to take a look?"

"Miles, you aren't supposed to be here," she whispered
back, having leaned down over the console to make sure she
wasn't overheard.

"It's all right, Nerys. The whole bridge is on standby,
except the parts we've completely deactivated. The only way
I'd be for it is if some idiot restored power to external
sensors and engaged them." He crawled out from under the
console.

"It's not worth the possible consequences."

"I appreciate the concern, but you know me. I was going out
of my mind, 'safe' in Julian's quarters."

"I also didn't think the replimat this morning was a great
idea, but that's your business and Keiko's, not mine. It
only becomes my business when you start doing things that
put you and the station both at risk."

"The station's not at--"

"Do you think it's irrelevant to the station if we wind up
with yet a newer Miles O'Brien? We could get stuck with
Smiley! He's a good man, but I can tell you in no uncertain
terms that if he made it this far, we couldn't count on him
to be cooperative about getting him home."

"Sure you could. Didn't he come for the Captain and take
him back?"

"That was different. The *way* you got shifted is the
*only* way to make sure you and all the other Miles
O'Briens who were shifted at the same time, however many of
them there might be--"

"We think there's maybe only the two--"

"--you *think*, so *far*, get back where they belong. And
Dax tells me time is a variable in this equation. I doubt
Smiley would relish the idea of possibly winding up in his
universe *before* Julian and I showed up and Smiley got off
the station with their Sisko."

"You're serious about this."

"I have firsthand experience with this kind of thing. And
what if your destabilization makes the station a center of
ongoing instabi--"

"All right! You've convinced me. Let me just--I know! I'm
coming! But I have to clean up this ODN relay before I
leave. Jarvis is in the engine room expecting me to."

"Fine. Just be careful." She folded her arms and leaned
against the console, watching. Realizing she intended to
wait and then drag him from the ship by his ear, Miles
sighed and crawled under the console again.

She didn't quite drag him, but she had enough power of
presence to make Miles walk faster, as though she were
hurrying him. "Um, Nerys," he began as they emerged from
the lock onto the docking ring, but she cut him off with
the words "Nothing out of you until we've got you out of
harm's way. Habitat ring," she told the lift, and continued
in a furious whisper "Keiko would be terror-struck if she
knew you were working on the Defiant--if you get shifted,
her husband could shift again too--so *don't* tell her.
She's got enough to worry about."

"I won't."

"And don't make me track you down and come for you again.
I've got enough to worry about, too."

"Nerys..."

"I said nothing out of you!"

He shut up. They proceeded to Julian's quarters, where
Nerys, evidently having been briefed by Dax on what she
should and shouldn't let Miles get near, made a quick
circuit of the quarters. "Julian might not know what it's
not safe to bring in here...looks all right."

"I think he's pretty well versed."

"Well enough. Now, you were saying?"

"I was saying that on behalf of my counterpart, I wanted to
thank you for helping Keiko and the children. If your Miles
has you to care for them when he's unavailable, he hasn't
got anything to worry about on their score."

She half-smiled. "I owe him for a few hundred foot
massages."

He grinned. "Here too?"

She grinned back. "I have to get back to Ops. If you speak
to Keiko, tell her I'll be in early tonight."

"Will do." She paused, gave him a one-armed hug on her way
to the door, then went out.

'Helluva woman in any universe,' Miles thought, going to
the desk terminal. 'All fire. Hm...my Julian and
Nerys...sparks'd fly all the way back to Bajor.' He
chuckled, trying to imagine the Julian who was indigenous
to *this* universe with Nerys. Not for a second. And his
own Julian already had his hands full.

While he was accessing the computer files on Dax's work,
which she had promised to make available to him, the comm
channel signaled; he answered it. Julian, apparently at his
office terminal.

"I've just been told," Julian said with a smirk, "that you
have been a *very* bad boy indeed."

"Oh, bloody--who else did she tell? Is she stationing a
guard outside?"

"No, although I expected her to suggest it at any moment.
Apparently *I* have been lax in my duty as your keeper. You
got me in trouble with the Major, Miles."

Miles grinned. "Did she leave any skin on you at all?"

"A scrap here and there, as a concession to my patently
sincere regret at having failed her. Try to be tolerant.
She's terribly worried about you, and about your
counterpart, and Keiko and the children. At least as
worried as I am."

"Then why are you so amiable while Nerys's temper is
hanging by a thread?"

"It's my sparkling bedside manner. Comes in useful all the
time. I'm nearly through here; I'll see you in an hour or
so. Tell me--how long were you up working on the Defiant
today?"

"Ever since Jadzia got the schematic for installation
mapped out, with my help. Make it five hours."

"The array's not ready, is it?"

"No, but when it is, the Defiant will be ready for it."

"Splendid. I'll see you in a bit."

"Right."

Miles gazed at the screen for a moment more, realized he
was thinking that he could get used to this universe's
Julian, then slapped himself back to reality. He wouldn't
have any need to get used to any part of this universe. He
was going home, to his own family, his own husband. But it
was as this Julian had said--he'd be glad to have met this
man, and might even miss him. Not that that was anything to
the prospect of getting home.

"And when I do, I'll *never* have appreciated home more,"
he muttered fervently, keying up the diagrams he wanted.

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

"Bollocks," Miles muttered as the power link failed a
second time.

Jadzia groaned. "Are you SURE your Jadzia was running this
experiment *in* her lab?"

"Positive. I'm beginning to get the feeling *we* might not
be able to make it work, though. In part, it's got to be
the remotes. We weren't concerned about exposure to a
quantum fissure; everything was put together in a far more
straightforward fashion."

"I think you're right. Data's help isn't even going to be
effective through this--let me get with a couple of my
people and deactivate the remotes and monitors. You can
just stay out of the danger radius. I can still activate it
remotely, but I'll be able to build and test the components
without all these intermediaries. That *should* be safe..."

"It should, yes. But I'd think about it. We don't know what
we're doing here near as much as my Jadzia did. You could
do something as simple as go a different route to the same
goal and wind up exposed to the fissure."

"I know." She let out an exhausted breath, got up from her
chair and came to him where he was standing, sliding her
arms around him and slumping against him.

He responded, but took just a second too long to do it.
Jadzia realized her error and lifted her head, pulling
back. "I'm sorry, Miles; I'm just tired."

"Don't be sorry. I could do with a hug, too."

She smiled back at him and they embraced for a few
heartbeats.

"Well. I'd say it's going either extremely poorly down
here, or extremely well." Julian was standing in the
doorway, smiling; he stepped through to let it shut.
Getting a better look at them, his expression sobered. "Not
well, by the looks of it."

"What time is it, Julian?" Dax wondered, lifting her head
from Miles's shoulder again.

"Close to oh-two-hundred, station time."

"Delta shift. Marvelous. We've been down here since the
beginning of Alpha nearly," Miles grumbled, dropping a
towel he'd been using to mop circuit fluid from Jadzia's
sleeve.

She wandered back over to the readout bank she'd been at.
"It's just a bunch of little things, Julian. Mechanical
problems, mostly. One or two that might be more serious
stumbling blocks, but by and large--look, you two go to
bed. I have tomorrow off. I'm going to stay here and try to
rebuild in the lab. Can I have a couple of your people,
Miles? I *could* call one of mine..."

"No, the only people you have working at this hour will be
doing things you can't easily interrupt. I've got a shift
up anyway--my people will know how to get what you need,
and they'll be fresh. You can have anybody on routine
maintenance; leave anyone working on special projects. Tell
'em to reshuffle the routine work over this week. Any
problems, call me."

Julian worried, touching Jadzia's cheek, "Are you sure,
Jadz? You look worn to a ghost."

"I'm sure. I want to attack this while everything is still
right here in my forebrain. I won't stay more than a couple
of hours more, if I have some help."

"Don't short yourself. We need you fresh, too." Julian
kissed her cheek and looked at Miles. Miles nodded, patted
Jadzia on his way by, and went out with him.

"What are you doing still up?" Miles wondered as they got
onto the lift.

"Habitat ring," Julian said. "Do you really think I could
sleep without you there?"

"I've got the alarm. The Commander and I would have known
if anything untoward was going to occur."

"Please explain that to my adrenal system. It doesn't seem
to understand about the alarm."

He took Julian's hand, a little awkwardly. "I know. We're
doing our best."

"I believe it. Both of you certainly have enough reason."

They stepped out and proceeded to their quarters.

Miles offered "I brought Jadzia back...back home for lunch."

Surprisingly, Julian smiled and his gaze turned down to the
floor in front of them. "Did she make her usual comment
when she saw the mess?"

"She asked me if it meant you were in high form last night."

"That's it," Julian chuckled. Miles smiled too. "Did you
tell her?"

Miles felt himself flushing and, as they entered, headed
straight for the replicator.

"You *did*," Julian surmised gleefully. Miles accepted the
fact that he was in for it now. Julian asked "Tell me,
love--did you use the word 'maniac'?"

"No, actually," Miles said in self-satisfaction, most of it
fabricated. "I used the word 'animal'." He turned back from
the replicator, sipping from a mug.

"Even better," Julian chuckled. "The very word you used
after our first night together."

"Our *very* first night?"

"The very first. It was in my quarters on the Enterprise.
We'd just completely flummoxed counselor Troi and her team
at Paresi squares. She came to shake my hand afterward--I
was our team Captain--and said to me "You play this game
like an animal, Julian. Next time it's water polo."

"She'd kill us all there."

"She did. But in any event, we went back to my quarters to
shower--I was a lieutenant, but I'd lucked into
command-level quarters, since there were engineering
lieutenants purely falling out the plasma vents during that
stretch of the voyage, and spare command quarters
available--and there was a bit of extra room in the shower,
and we'd been flirting for a time...and I was a touch
wrought up after the game--"

"You joined me."

"Only after you invited me."

"I stand corrected."

"The shower got uncomfortable--"

"Like the floor last night?"

"Far worse. Dreadfully confining, and we couldn't exactly
fix *that* problem by throwing the bedclothes down."

"I see. What then?" Miles sat down next to Julian with his
tea.

"We tried to get out and dry off."

"We 'tried' to?"

"It took us...oh...the better part of a half hour just to
get out of the bathroom."

Miles found himself chuckling. If last night was any
indication...Julian, watching him, was still smiling. Miles
prompted "And when we did?"

"We never reached the bed. I had to virtually rebuild our
skin from the dermis with nothing but a regenerator, in the
morning."

"And that's when...?"

"No, it was before we fell asleep. You were on top of
me--like we were in the floor there at first, last
night--and you said to me, 'Julian Subatoi Bashir, you
*are* an animal'."

"Hmp. Not a terribly romantic thing to say."

"Believe me, I found it wondrous. But then, I found
everything about you wondrous at *that* moment."

"I take it your opinion's changed?"

"Not much," Julian said softly, reaching for Miles's hand.

Miles took Julian's searching fingers and held them with
real warmth. He set his tea cup down and said "You picked
up the bedclothes."

"I can throw them back down."

"I'll help you."

They stood up. Before they could get any farther, Julian
nabbed Miles in a clinch and they kissed until Miles needed
to breathe. During the pause, Miles whispered "I'm glad to
see you're feeling better."

"I *will* get my husband back." Julian fixed a penetrating
gaze into Miles's eyes. "One way or another."

---

"Dax to O'Brien!"

Miles lurched upright in the dark, spurred by the intensity
in Jadzia's voice. He leaned over and slapped the badge
resting on the table. "O'Brien. What is it, Commander?"

"I'm picking up a low-level subspace disturbance in the
lab!"

Miles jumped up and started scrambling for his uniform.
This caused Julian to fall off him and he reached to give
the other man a perfunctory pat of apology. "Anything
visual?"

"Not yet, I don't want to risk disturbing it with the
modified warp; we weren't too sure about the field strength
required, remember?"

"Yeah, the--excuse me, Julian, that's my undershirt you're
on--the only field we know about to bring one of those
things into the visible spectrum is the one Data used, and
that fissure was considerably larger."

Muzzy with sleep, Julian finally got a grasp on the
precedings. "Miles? Jadz has found something?"

"I'll be right there, Commander. Julian, she's detected the
first sign that we were looking for, one that would
indicate we're at least beginning a quantum fissure in the
lab."

"I'll be right there," Julian quoted as he lunged for his
uniform.

Miles shot out the door under the motive impetus of
possible return.

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

"Dax to O'Brien!"

Miles levered upright and smacked his badge where it rested
on the bedside table. "O'Brien. What is it, Jadzia?"

"I'm detecting a low-level subspace disturbance--in my lab."

"But we dismantled the--"

"We did. But the monitors are still up, and it's there."

Miles was quiet for a bare second.

Then: "Oh NO--" he lunged out of bed and called the lights
on, started struggling into his uniform and yelled further
"I'll be right there! How fast is it building?"

"Slowly, by my projections, but Chief--it *is* moving
relative to the station. Only a centimeter or so per ten
minutes so far--"

"But that could change, right. I'm on my way." He bolted
out the bedroom door.

Julian was sitting up on the sofa. "Miles? Has Jadzia found
something?"

"A low-level subspace disturbance in the lab."

"I thought she'd worked out that it would be totally
unsafe--"

"It is! My Jadzia and your Miles've been busy!"

A quick silence, then--"Oh God. I'll be right there,"
Julian snapped, charging into the bedroom for a uniform.

---

Miles skidded to a halt outside the lab, catching himself
on the doorframe, stopped himself just in time and
proceeded to the room a distance down the hall.

"Were you exposed?" he demanded, catching himself on
Jadzia's shoulder to keep from falling over her; she was
squatting near the door, frantically reactivating the rest
of the monitors they'd built before Jadzia's past research
told them the fissure wouldn't be a safe prospect in the
lab.

Jadzia replied hurriedly "I haven't had time to check. I
didn't pick it up until I was in here--"

"But it might have started while you were in the lab?"

"It might've."

"Do NOT leave this room!"

"Or you! If the fissure's open again there's no telling
what a subspace field pulse will do to *either* of us now!"

Julian bombed in behind them both and slammed into Miles.
"Sorry. Hold still." He scanned Miles with the tricorder he
was holding. "Looks like you're still stable, Miles, if
alien." He managed to nab the biceps of the still-moving
Jadzia, not slowing her much but allowing him to keep the
tricorder focused on her back as she drug him around in her
wake.

"Damn."

"What?"

"She's in flux!"

"But she is still *your* Jadzia?"

"You'll have to ask her that. Jadzia--"

Jadzia, turning to stride back across the room to what goal
Miles had no idea, suddenly crumpled.

"Jadzia!" Julian hadn't been able to keep up with her, but
he did manage to keep her from braining herself on the edge
of a console. He eased her to the floor. "Miles! What in
here might be causing a subspace--"

"Nothing! We cleared out all the--"

"Then it must've originated--"

"--over there," Miles groaned, covering his face with both
hands.

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

Miles skidded to a halt outside the lab, caught himself and
proceeded to the old lab workroom several doors down. He
came in and up behind Jadzia, who was riding herd on the
monitors. "What's the word?"

"I raised the gain on the model array transceivers."

"How? I thought we'd topped out their capacity."

"I replaced them."

"With what?"

"What your Jadzia probably used--sub-orbital flight
platform communications relays."

"What? How?"

"They're perfect, they fit all the specs with a *much*
higher range capability."

"But how are you powering the blasted things?"

"I jacked into the Defiant's warp core."

"WHAT?"

"Isn't that what your Jadzia did?"

"Bloody. She might've. She did intend to install the final
array on the Defiant. Let me think..."

Julian ran in and slammed into Miles. "Sorry." He started
scanning the Chief. "You're still stable..." He dove for
Jadzia.

She tried to shrug him off. "Julian, I wasn't in there when
I activated."

"I don't care." He nabbed her shoulder and scanned. "Jadz,
are you sure?"

"I'm positive!"

"Then explain this!" He showed her the tricorder readout by
main force.

She stared. "That can't be. We took every precaution."

"Well you MUST have missed SOMEthing, you're in flux!"
Jadzia was bug-eyed a bare moment, then suddenly started
casting about the equipment-cluttered room. "Miles, I had
one of your people bring me a portable level-three
diagnostic scanner. I told him--" she started rummaging in
a corner until she got to the equipment bank back there,
which as far as Miles could see was deactivated. "--I told
him I was going to want to run it on automatic in the lab--"

"Jadzia, get *out*," Miles snapped, lunging for her, but
Julian was faster and shoved him back toward the door.

"You too, Miles," Julian exhorted him, "Jadz, go on, back
down the hall away from the lab. If it's in here I'll find
it eventually--are you sure you told him *in the lab*?"

"It didn't matter! I told you, we took every precaution to
avoid exposure and Miles doesn't come near without calling
first--" she stumbled as Julian shoved her back out of the
corner and started pawing through things, checking
everything he found for signs of being set for automatic
activation.

"Miles! Drag her if you have to, no time to shut
everything--" he stopped. Across the top of the main
readout board, a semicircle of lights had all flashed blue,
and a blank diagnostic screen lit.

As Miles's subspace field pulse alarm shrilled, Jadzia
slumped in his arms.

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

"Jadzia. Jadzia? Can you open your eyes? I think she's
conscious."

"I am."

Miles watched as Jadzia, lying across Julian's lap, started
blinking.

Julian said "On the off chance there *is* something in
here, Miles..." Julian assisted Jadzia to her feet and he
and Miles helped her out into the corridor and down several
doors to another deserted laboratory workroom. The door
closed behind them and Miles called the lights on.

Jadzia stood swaying a moment between them, then seemed to
focus once the lights came on. "I'm all right, I was just
dizzy..."

Julian spoke. "Jadzia. Tell me something. Are you seeing
anyone?"

Jadzia suddenly became completely clear, and her eyes
widened in nervousness. "Seeing--oh, you mean--I'm married.
To Keiko Ishikawa."

Miles and Julian exchanged a grim look. "Welcome to *his*
universe," Miles muttered, putting an arm around her waist,
half in physical support and half in emotional.

"Miles?"

"It's me, darlin'. At least, so far as we know. Julian?"

Julian already had his tricorder running again. "Hard to
say. She's still in flux."

"Can we get her to the infirmary to check? We sure's heaven
can't use the lab."

Julian said grimly "I'm afraid we have an even more
immediate problem there. Jadzia, what happened? What
brought you here? Our Jadzia was exposed to the fissure
you're generating on your side, but there was nothing
that--"

"There was on my side," she said grimly. "Because your
Miles and I took such precautions to prevent exposure, I
wasn't as alert as I should have been. I had one of Miles's
people bring a few things to the temporary control center
while I had a quick shower. One of them was a portable
diagnostic scanner. I'd been intending to use it in the
lab, not the control center, but I've been up more than
thirty hours and I must not've been specific enough."

Miles pondered "Then...you went into flux when our Jadzia
did, exposed to the quantum fissure you generated..."

"And the diagnostic activated automatically. Julian tried
to throw Miles and me out and deactivate it, but he wasn't
in time."

"*Bloody* hell."

---
(--quantum jump, out--)
---

Julian yelled over the alarm "Jadzia! Miles, get her out of
here before--"

Miles didn't need telling. With some difficulty, closely
followed by Julian, he was carrying the long, lank form of
the unconscious science officer into the hall and out, down
a few doors and into another deserted laboratory workroom.
As soon as they got into the corridor, the alarm shut off.

He let her down and called the lights on; a few followed
the command. In less than a moment, Julian was over her
with the tricorder, but he shook his head. "I can't tell
for certain; her signature's still in flux. Jadz. Can you
open your eyes? I think she's conscious--"

"I am," Jadzia whispered, and Julian touched her cheek,
focusing her gaze on him. "Hi, Jadz. It's me."

"Julian." She started trying to get up and Julian stepped
back and gave her a hand. She swayed between him and Miles
for just a moment.

"Tell me something, Jadz. What's the reason you let me call
you that?"

"Call me...?"

"When Miles and Keiko took Molly to the Gratitude festival
on Bajor last year. How did you and I wind up celebrating?"

"I was with Kira on Bajor for the Gratitude festival
last--" Julian was shaking his head, face a blank mask.

"Uh, oh," Jadzia breathed, then looked at Miles. "Chief?"

"Fancy meeting you here, Commander."

She blinked again, then her eyes widened and she
galvanized. "The fissure! I've got to--" she lunged for the
door and they both grabbed her arms, and she shook them
off, saying in a near-panic, "You've got to stop what
you're doing! It's not safe to generate that fissure on the
station! It might be safe for *you*, but who knows *how*
many alternate timelines are going to be hit with the--"

Miles shot out the door and into the hall, down it and into
the control room, ignoring Julian, who essayed a fast grab
that the Chief barely dodged. Miles was willing to wait for
the full explanation; obviously, *some*thing had happened
to cause Jadzia to make the same shift he had, and if she
said it was dangerous to generate the fissure...

It took him only a minute or two to locate where she'd put
the backup functions, and he began shutdown, which
unfortunately was going to take a few moments. Nervous as
hell, constantly on the alert for a wave of dizziness, he
completed the procedure.

Finally all the monitors and readouts were at neutral and
he began shutting the power down. Disengaging from the
Defiant took him a few minutes, since he hadn't seen Jadzia
build that part of the control circuit.

He stepped out into the hall, paused as the door swished
closed behind him, and turned around to punch in the lock
code. He started back down to the emptied workroom.

Julian had the tricorder on him before he could take a step
inside. "I'm fine, Julian."

"It...does appear you're still you. Jadzia, on the other
hand..."

"Infirmary," they all said, and all three of them proceeded
out, heading away from the lab, Miles and Jadzia on the
lookout for anything, hidden or in plain view, that could
possibly bump Jadzia again.

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

When Sisko showed this time, he was still in his robe. "Did
I understand you to say, Doctor," he said worriedly, "that
we've had another shift?" Then he noticed it was Jadzia on
the biobed.

He stopped still. She gave him a weak smile. "Hello,
Benjamin. Greetings from beyond the quantum barrier."

"She's *not*--?" he spun to look at Julian.

"She's not," Julian confirmed. "According to my scans,
she's from the same universe the Chief there is."

"Which would make it almost certain," Jadzia picked up,
"that this particular fissure, for some reason--I bet it
has to do with it being artificial in origin--has, at least
so far, created a two-way bridge rather than a musical
slidewalk, even if some realities are getting skipped. Of
course, now that both of us have switched once, it's more
likely that other realities may become involved if there's
another switch--assuming there aren't other realities
already involved, connected to the fissure, and we just
can't see what's happening there. You see, Benjamin, as
near as we can figure--" Jadzia launched into an
explanation of the unfortunate pas de deux of quantum
realities that had brought about this further lamentable
event.

"Well." Benjamin considered. "This doesn't have to
invalidate the plan our Jadzia and the Chief were working
on. We can't communicate with them...but if I know her, the
Old Man will keep them from taking any more dangerous
action. After all, she has the knowledge."

Jadzia nodded vigorously. "That's true. And if you'll let
me take a look, with Miles, at what they've been working on
here, I'm sure I'll be able to continue the work with him."

"Not tonight," Julian said. "You're exhausted and the
Chief's little better off. Both of you need some rest."

"I *do* have today off--"

"Their Jadzia didn't," Miles informed her, and Julian cut
in "But you do now. And you'll spend at least six hours
sleeping. Argue and I'll insist on eight."

"First I just want to see the preparations for installation
on the Def--"

"Would you care to try for ten?"

"Don't do it," Miles warned her. "This isn't our lad. He
won't be sweet-talked."

Jadzia wavered, then deflated, nodding. "All right. Six
hours."

"It's eight now. And that goes for you too, Miles. You're
both worn thin. Look at these cellular scans." Julian
clucked as he shut everything down, careful of what was
activated and what wasn't. "Um...Captain...shouldn't
someone speak with Worf?"

"I thought we'd got everything we needed from him," Miles
puzzled.

"I will speak with Mister Worf, Doctor, at the beginning of
Alpha shift. It's only another hour or two now in any
event. Old Man--" he came up to Jadzia and laid a hand on
her shoulder. "It would please me mightily never to see you
again..."

She laughed. "Me too, Benjamin."

"...but failing that, you're the *only* other specimen of
Jadzia Dax I *ever* want to see. You be careful in your
work."

"I will be. We all will be."

"I'll hold you to that." Sisko left the infirmary.

---

"I live here?"

"Your counterpart does."

"There aren't many plants. And the ones I see look sick."

"You're not married to a botanist here. Our Jadzia never
developed much of an affinity for raising plants." Julian
sat down on the arm of a chair.

Jadzia was standing in the doorway, holding Miles's hand.
"Is it all right for Miles to stay here with me?" She spied
her bat'leth on the wall and crossed quickly to it, pulling
Miles with her, and touched it lightly, as though for
reassurance. Miles laid a hand on her shoulder and looked
back at Julian.

"I'm afraid it's not really even all right for *you* to
stay here. Your flux is stabilizing, but it won't be for a
bit yet. Until we get another of those monitors built, it
*is* wise for you and Miles to stay together, but not to
stay alone. You'll soon both be in the same state, with the
same signature; what affects one of you will affect both,
and if something should happen, we don't need you alone,
sleep fuddled, when the alarm goes off."

"He means we need a babysitter," Jadzia whispered to Miles.

Miles nodded. "And it sounded to me like he was
volunteering."

"It sounded a lot like that to me, too." She looked back at
Julian and smiled.

Julian shook his head, yawning, then said "If this keeps
up, I'll have to open a ward for you people."

---

Miles beckoned to Jadzia, then reached back and took her
hand as she came through the bedroom door and up to him. In
the silver starlight, barely visible through the darkened
port, they tiptoed past the couch, not two meters in front
of it--

"Computer LIGHTS!"

Jadzia and Miles, dressed in pajamas and a deep lavender
strap nightgown (not in that order), shot up to their full
height and beyond, eyes enormous.

Julian steamed silently at them a moment, then swung his
legs down and sat up. "First," he began ominously, "it's
whispering. Whispering like two children at a sleepover
until I threaten to separate you. Then it's the bloody
terminal. Now you think you can just sneak out past me? The
Julian on your side must be completely blind."

Jadzia started to open her mouth, a mollifying expression
on her face.

"NOT a word! Miles, Nerys has already told us both what
will happen to us if she catches you working on the Defiant
again. Jadzia...I can expect no more from you, I suppose,
it's in your nature. But Miles wasn't anything like this
troublesome before you showed. I won't have you egging him
on."

Jadzia looked at the floor, a smirk pulling at the corner
of her mouth. She ducked her head and her dark hair swung
down across her shoulder, veiling her.

"It was my idea, love," Miles timorously pointed out.

"Conceived, no doubt, after a good bit of pretty pouting,
and complaints about my overcaution, from your sister
there."

"Well..."

"I thought so. Back in the bedroom, both of you, at once."
He got up and chased them back, then leaned around the
frame of the open door to glare forbiddingly at them as
they clambered back into Jadzia's bed, Jadzia spooning up
in front of Miles with his arm over her. "And if there's
one more disturbance, *all* the time you've wasted will be
added to how long I make you stay there. Clear?"

"Clear."

"Crystal."

Julian returned to the couch.

There was a pause.

(whisper)

(whisperwhisper)

(whisper?)

(whisper *you* try whisperwhisper sweet on you on this
side, too)

(he's *your* whisper)

(not hardly he's whisper)

"QUIET!"

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

Keiko was very still, gazing down at the bat'leth across
her lap. "She'll...she won't be there...her tournament with
Worf..."

Jadzia had received her hug and kiss; then, as gently as
possible, she had explained. Keiko had backed out of her
arms and away a few steps, and looked at Julian, who was as
somber as Miles had ever seen him; then she turned and
crossed the room silently, her long shining hair falling
back over her nightgown as she reached up and took the
bat'leth down. It was easily two-thirds her height. She'd
turned around, sat down and laid the great weapon in her
lap.

"Keiko..." Julian laid a hand on her shoulder, then went
down on one knee next to her chair.

The bat'leth slid to the floor with a loud clang as Keiko
turned to throw her arms around Julian. Jadzia caught it
before it could knock a hole in anything, and Julian caught
Keiko.

Miles stared at Keiko until tears stood in his eyes,
reflecting that Keiko was now miserable in two universes,
then turned and went back into the room where a
light-haired child with Julian's eyes sat up in bed,
blinking sleepily at him, saying "Hi, daddy," and holding
her arms out. He picked her up and held her close. "Hi,
sweetie," he whispered.

"Mommy's sad."

"I know, honey. But she'll be all right. Everything's going
to be fine soon."

"Why can't Iko and me come stay with you and daddy?"

"Julian and I are really busy this week, sweetie."

"Station business?" Molly sighed.

Miles smiled slightly. Another thing just the same. "Yes,
it is."

"How long?"

"We're hoping it'll only be a few more days, maybe less.
Mommy Jadzia's going to come work with us, so aunt Nerys is
coming to stay with you and Mommy Kei."

As he had hoped, the little girl perked up. "Doesn't aunt
Nerys have station business?"

"Not...as much as we do right now. She'll be staying until
we're done. She told me she's looking forward to seeing
you."

"Me, too."

"We'll come by and see you again tonight, all right,
sweetie? Now you need to sleep a little while longer if you
can."

She nodded, and he tucked her back in bed. "Can I have a
story?"

"Mommy told you one last night, honey. I'll give you
another tonight, will that be all right?"

"Okay," Molly said, a little downcast, but without the
energy to make much of a fuss. "Will daddy Julian come too?"

"He'll come too." He kissed her forehead. "We'll see you
then."

"Okay."

"Computer, night lights." Miles went back to the front room.

Julian noticed his return. He gently set Keiko back in her
chair and motioned toward the door. Jadzia was already
waiting next to it, having hung the bat'leth back on the
wall.

They stepped through the door and let it close.

Julian said at once "I'm staying for a while; Nerys can't
be here right away. Jadz, I'll get some of your things. I
want both of you to go to our quarters and get some sleep.
I haven't the leisure to shepherd you; Keiko and the girls
need me--but I don't want to hear later that you both
immediately hit the drawing board. You are worn out, and--"
his voice dropped to a glacial quiet,
"we...*cannot*...afford any more mistakes." He gazed at
them with that level, cold stare that had such impact for
its very lack of emotion.

"You're right, Julian," Jadzia said softly. "We do need to
rest. We'll get some sleep."

"Good." Julian leaned forward and kissed Miles on the
mouth, then went back inside, where Keiko sat motionless
and silent.

Jadzia was also motionless and silent.

"Um..." Miles finally said, "He's right. Come on. He and
Keiko don't need to have us to worry about right now."

They turned and started for Miles and Julian's quarters.

"Chief, was I...reading anything at all into that?" Jadzia
wondered. "I mean...I knew this universe's Miles was
married to his Julian, but..."

Miles said, his expression pensive to the point of
discomfort, "I think I may have bit off more than I can
chew. I wanted to be here for him, and the two girls,
but..." he was quiet as they strode along.

"How do you mean?" she whispered back.

"I mean he's quite determined to get his husband back. And
if he can't get that other Miles, he's more than willing to
settle for me."

"More than willing?"

"A *lot* more than willing. I hope you don't take this
badly, Commander, but I'm glad you're here. I'm far more
hopeful about getting home now."

"Then you two are...um..."

"Do you really want to hear the answer to that?"

"Now that I think about it, no." The door closed behind
them. "So, Chief; do you want the bed or the couch?"

"I think I'd better take the bed."

"Right."

"Let me get you a pillow."

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

On the Defiant, a distressed cry rang out. "Jadzia!"

"Yeah?"

"Could you give me a hand?"

"I'm kind of in the middle of something, Miles."

"So am I. Of the blast wall and the ejection system!"

"What?!" Miles heard a thudding and banging overhead, then
looked up to see a shadow peering down the access well at
him. "How did you wind up in there?"

"Routing your power shunts. I had to take up the crawlway
floor."

"And fell through?"

"Only about halfway, but if you don't hurry--"

"Here." He saw her duck under the guard rail and flop onto
her stomach. "Can you reach my hand?"

"Nearly--just a bit farther--"

He managed to seize her outstretched extremity, and she
said "Don't pull, I'll lose my grip. Just let me--" she
wrapped her other arm around the rail, then brought to bear
all the considerable strength in her six-foot frame and
contracted toward the center. With a quick jump she had her
legs under her and hauled again.

"I've got the ladder. Thanks, Jadzia."

"Are you done down there? I want to go up to the bridge and
try the board we dedicated. I'll be through with the
backups in just a few minutes."

"I still need to...bloody. Eastman!" When the bellow
produced nothing, he tapped his badge. "O'Brien to Eastman."

"Eastman here, Chief."

"We need you down by the core. We've some diagnostics need
running."

"I'll be right there."

Miles accepted a hand from Jadzia as he climbed up and out,
past the pried-off floor panels, out of the lower levels of
the core work area. While he was getting his feet, a young
woman in engineering gold came down from the upper level
and over to them. "The power shunts, Chief?" she asked.

"Aye, and the backups the Commander's installing. We'll be
up on the bridge; we'd like you to scan with the
diagnostics. They come up all right, we'll run function
checks from upstairs."

"Right, Chief."

"But give us just one minute. I'll give the Commander a
hand and we'll call you from the bridge."

Eastman looked puzzled, but nodded dutifully.

Miles joined Jadzia, crawling under the console she now
stood over. "You're nearly done here?"

"Nearly. Let me input some general specs while you finish
the installation and we'll see what you think."

"You know we're going to have to come up with something to
tell people," Miles muttered. "Giving these strange orders
with no explanation..."

"I've gotten a few looks too," Jadzia said, tapping the
board, glancing between it and the padd she held in one
hand. "It shouldn't matter much. Kira will be here to kick
us both off the ship soon."

"Thanks for giving me the time margin, by the way. I can't
believe she was so...adamant about not allowing certain
operations while we were here."

"Don't thank me yet. If she finds out that the engineering
crew is already using instruments guaranteed to jolt us
into the next level of forever if we get too close, she's
going to have Odo throw us in the joint."

"She can't. The security scanners in the holding cells--"

"--generate a subspace field pulse," came a dry baritone
from the upper level.

Miles could just see Jadzia look up, see the upper level,
and wave marginally. "Uh...hi, Julian."

"Hi yourself." He came down and over to them while Miles
backed frantically out from under the console. Julian
continued "Come on. Kira will be here any moment, and you
two need to be gone when she sees the sort of activity
that's taking place only too near wherever either of you
happen to be."

"We haven't set our alarms off even once," Jadzia protested.

Julian said "And I understand the sort of precautions
you've been taking. But Kira won't. And Odo aside, she'll
lock you both in your quarters under her voice
authorization. Which I can override, but which, if you're
stupid enough to openly defy her again, I won't do."

"Right," Miles muttered sourly. "Jadzia, the backups should
come online at the check. Let's get out of here before
Nerys--"

"Oops." Julian grabbed one of their arms in each hand and
hauled them away from the main door. "We'll have to take
the scenic route."

"Why?" Miles asked, trying to get his arm back and failing
as Julian dragged them back to the upper level.

"I just heard Kira's voice in the corridor."

"I didn't hear anything!"

"I'm not surprised. You're also tone deaf. Remind me, next
time you ask me to go kayaking, that if I say yes I'm going
to be regaled with a less-than-tuneful version of 'Louie
Louie' until I'm forced to deliberately capsize you."

"Miles," Jadzia snickered, "I told you that song would ruin
you. Did our Julian...?"

"He tried," Miles admitted, "but on our side, I won the
paddle war."

Jadzia broke out in cackles and Julian hissed her into
silence as they climbed into a crawlway. "I hope you've
told your people that you weren't here."

"How could we tell them that? How would we explain it?"
Jadzia said.

"Lovely. We'll have to hope Kira doesn't ask questions."

Led by Miles, they crawled through the access tunnels--and
they were all three large enough for it to be quite the
obstreperous journey--until they hopped out near the lock
and sealed the wall up. Julian looked around the corners up
ahead and beckoned them both. They followed, praying Kira
wasn't back in the lock already.

She wasn't, and they all went back to Jadzia's lab, which
had been cleared of all potentially inimical items. "All
right," Jadzia said, "this is where we are." She called up
the relevant files and displayed them.

"Please tell me if this is good or bad," Julian requested,
and Jadzia said "It depends on how you look at it. We're
ready to install the array--dependent on the reports on the
checks we can't run--but finishing the array is going to be
almost impossible."

"Why?" Julian wondered, but his lowered brow relaxed almost
at once as realization struck. "Oh--you mean, specifically
for you two. You need to do things that might..."

"...might land you a couple of fresh examples of Miles and
Jadzia," Miles said. "And I don't see how we can delegate
this work."

"I'm going to have to extrapolate on what your Jadzia's
finished already--I can see what the main ideas are with no
problem, but as far as specifics, I'll be playing
hit-and-miss with a few things," Jadzia said.

"We don't even know that *she* knew where she was going,
completely, yet," Miles said. "She didn't expect to get
shipped off to our universe. I know some of it, and I can
help, but if she did know every last detail of where she
planned to wind up, she didn't record the information
anywhere that we can see, and what she told to me stops
short of the final outcome."

"May I come in?"

They all looked around; Sisko was standing in the doorway.
Jadzia said "Benjamin. Did you hear what we were telling
Julian?"

"I did; from what *my* Old Man was telling me, I rather
expected a development like this." He leaned against one of
the consoles. "Although you two seem to feel you have
enough immunity to getting 'bounced', as Dax puts it, to
work over on the Defiant up until not more than fifteen
minutes ago, despite the possible danger."

"Who ratted us out?" Jadzia wondered resignedly.

"I'd rather not say. Let's just say that Major Kira--"

"Oh no," Miles muttered. "Nerys is on the warpath."

"--was not pleased when she asked one of the engineers a
question, and that engineer set off to find you in the
drive room with every evidence of expecting to succeed, and
showed great puzzlement when you weren't present."

"How much lead time do we have?" Jadzia asked uncertainly.

"She won't be down anytime soon. Minister Iteij contacted
the station concerning the meeting rooms being prepared for
his trade negotiation with the Lurian Consortment, and
I...delegated the discussion."

"Oh, fine. Now we're going to pay twice as hard when she
finally gets at us," Miles groaned.

"Relax, Miles. You survived seven months of living with
Kira while she was pregnant. She's hardly going to prove
fatal now," Julian reminded him.

"She can move a lot faster now."

"She'll be busy with Keiko. So, then--you're at a
standstill?"

"Not exactly, but there's quite a load of collapsed metal
strapped to the project," Jadzia said. "I've been working
on component construction in here and in the storage area
we refitted, but I think I'm going to need one of the main
cargo receiving bays to finish. I can set up a subspace
isolation field--essentially, a selective jamming
field--and, with enough room to be on the other side of the
field, at least be present during the testing, even if
other people have to handle the instruments."

"I believe bay three is about half-empty at the moment, nor
is there anything there that should be harmed by being
moved. I'll see about getting it cleared for you."

"Thanks, Benjamin. Now I just need to think of a good
reason for me to be behind a subspace isolation field."

"We could tell them the truth, at least as far as you go,"
Miles pondered.

"Um," Julian said, and shifted uncomfortably.

"That might not be wise," Sisko offered. "Mister Worf is
under enough stress as it is. I don't believe he'd
appreciate this situation becoming common knowledge."

"Worf?" Jadzia puzzled, looking up, and Miles's expression
echoed her.

"You and Worf, Jadzia, on this side, you're...you have
something of a..." Julian tried.

"WORF?!" Miles and Jadzia were both agog.

"Good night," Miles continued in disbelief, "you're right.
He *wouldn't* appreciate it."

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

"Any insights?"

Miles looked up from the terminal; Julian was just coming
in. Moving around to lean over and get a look at the
screen, he laid his hands on the Chief's shoulders.

Miles looked back at the schematic rotating in front of
him. "Not insights, exactly. Things I hope your Miles and
Jadzia remember to watch out for. Jadzia hadn't finished
all the details of her ideas and the array when she was
shifted; but with your Miles over there having worked with
our Jadzia, and our Jadzia over here to tell us what not to
do, I'm hoping we can avoid any more problems."

"We'd all better hope that."

"How was today?"

"More of the usual." Julian went to the replicator and got
a cup of something hot, then went to the sofa and sat down.
"Come here," he invited. "That is, if you don't mind."

"I don't." Leaving the terminal running, Miles got up and
came down to sit at the end of the sofa Julian patted, and
Julian swung his own feet up to the other end and reclined
in Miles's lap, against the arm the older man had
automatically placed for him. Julian rested his head on
Miles's shoulder and held the cup of tea where Miles could
take a sip from it.

Smiling despite himself, Miles did so, and Julian lowered
the cup and drank from it, then rested his head again,
getting more comfortable.

Miles wondered if this was leading up to
something--eventually, it *would* be leading up to
something, unless something happened to intervene; that
much Miles knew by now--but for the moment, at least, it
seemed to be an end in itself.

"This'd be something we do a lot, then?" he asked quietly.

Julian smiled a little. "We used to do it almost every day,
as soon as we were both home. It was our way of
disconnecting from our frustrations. These days, we save it
for times of particular tension."

"This does qualify, I admit." Miles sighed. "This waiting."

"I know how difficult it must be for you. When things
break, you don't wait for them to heal--you fix them."

"Whereas you spend a good deal of time not knowing whether
your repairs are ultimately going to be successful or not,"
Miles agreed. "Jadzia's not having an easy time of it
either."

"Where is she?"

"On the spare cot in Molly's room, asleep finally."

"Good. I didn't think she'd ever unglue herself from that
terminal. She's fretting over what she hadn't recorded yet
when she was shifted," Julian said.

"That's what she told me, too. I'm willing to bet it isn't
the great trouble she's expecting it to be."

"I'll take your word for it." Julian held the cup for Miles
again, then drank another sip himself. "I wanted to tell
you how much we all appreciate what you're doing for us.
You must be frightened nearly past bearing, but your
primary concern seems to be for us. Particularly me. And
your own family, of course."

"You'd do no less for me."

"I'd...try, I know, but I don't think I could have
succeeded with the grace that you have. I haven't been as
supportive of you; all I could think about was whether I'd
ever see my husband again. And how I'd ever manage to
explain things to Molly. That would have been keeping me up
of nights if we didn't wear ourselves out."

"Glad to be of service," Miles chuckled.

"Are you glad of it? Really? Or only glad you can help?"
Julian didn't raise his head to look at Miles as he asked
the question.

Miles considered a moment, then said "Truthfully? Both."

"Well." Julian gave a barely perceptible sigh. "I can live
with that, for now."

"Julian..."

"You did love me before. You can learn to again."

Miles let his arms tighten fractionally around the doctor.
"You need to understand something--I love you already, as
much as I do my own Julian."

"He's your friend, not your husband."

"That's right. I'm married to Keiko. It...it's not a matter
of learning to love you again. As terrifically close as I
come to being your Miles, and you my Julian...it's not dead
on. I'm not him."

"But you can--it's possible, because you did, in a way. As
you say, we're very nearly identical with our counterparts.
If you can fall in love with me on the Enterprise, it's no
great stretch to believe you could fall in love with me
agai--I mean here, on the station."

"Julian...I'm not the same man I was when I served on the
Enterprise, and you aren't the green twenty-four year old
your Miles met there. Both of us have changed, not only in
mannerisms, moods...we have different universal views now.
I can't say it's impossible I'll ever love you like you
want me to, but I simply can't promise you anything."

"You don't need to promise." Julian moved up a bit higher
in Miles's lap and fed him another sip of tea before
setting the cup down on the low table in front of the
couch. Then he slid a hand into Miles's thick, dark-blond
hair. "I know how to make you happy, and I'm not afraid to
use the knowledge."

Miles spent the next five minutes getting the living hell
kissed out of him.

Finally able to breathe, Julian wrapped so close with him
they couldn't have kissed if they'd tried, Miles whispered
"Julian. Please try to be realistic. You know it isn't me
you really want, and we have every reason to hope you'll
have your husband back in a few--"

"Realistic? Between the two of us, I seem to be the one
thinking more realistically. The odds of your being able to
return to your universe via the same route you came here,
which Jadz says is essential to the final solution, are
forty-eight point zero three to one."

Miles sat there a minute, then said "I take it you've been
studying up? When did you come alongside *that* figure?"

"About fifteen minutes ago, on my way back here."

"Crikey. Since when are you a lightning calculator?"

Julian was silent a moment, then leaned back far enough to
look in Miles's eyes.

There were a few quiet heartbeats, then Julian smiled.
"Like it? It's amazing what one can train oneself to do
with enough practice. Oh, it took some effort--but now the
hardest bit is categorizing the factors. I think..." He
began, very gently, disengaging himself from Miles,
finishing "...that I'll put together the report Captain
Sisko asked for on biological factors inherent in this type
of quantum disturbance. I'll let you get back to looking
over your latest schematics." He kissed Miles again, then
picked up the half-empty tea cup and put it back in the
replicator on his way into the bedroom.

Miles sat a minute, wondering. 'Curled right up,' he
thought. 'Wonder what I did wrong. It's not telling him I
couldn't promise anything, I've been saying that all along.'

When a few minutes of going back over what had been said
didn't unearth any explanations, he left the mystery to
itself and went back to the terminal.
Jadzia emerged from Molly's room, dressed in a dark
lavender strap nightgown. She peered sleepily around the
room. "I thought I heard Julian."

"You did, Commander. He's in the bedroom, writing a report
for the Captain."

"Is there some reason he's not using the terminal?"

"More than likely, but you'd have to ask him what exactly
it is. I think I said something disturbing to him."

"What?"

"Hell if I know. We were comfy as you please on the sofa,
he mentioned the odds of our returning home the same way we
got here down to a couple of decimal places, I asked him
how he'd figured *that* walking home from the infirmary,
and he shut down. Polite as always--or usually--but it
wasn't hard to tell that he needed to get away from me."

"This can't be easy for him. Maybe...you just stumbled
across something his husband would have known."

"I suspect it's something like that, but I'm not about to
ask him right now. How are you feeling since you got a bit
of sleep? I should have known better than to leave you in
here alone with the terminal."

"Oh..." she went to the sofa and sat on the arm, then
toppled backward, leaving those up-to-her-neck legs hanging
over. She sighed gustily. "I'm all right. As all right as
it gets. Keiko..."

"I understand," Miles said softly.

"She just...I could feel it, Chief. It's hard to explain.
All the warmth and caring and admiration she has for her
Jadzia. She was...she felt so *vital* in my arms. Do you
know what I mean?"

"Better than you realize."

"I'm sorry, Chief, of course you do. But then I...while I
was telling her...I could see the beginning of this
terrified suspicion in her eyes, and then she...withdrew. I
don't just mean out of my hold, I mean the whole feel...she
looked at me like...like I was telling her not just that
her wife was *dead*--which, to this universe, I guess she
is, in a way--I was her murderer. I feel like I should
apologize for existing. Even worse, this *is* my fault. It
was my experiment."

"No one can see *everything* that's going to happen with a
new project, particularly not one like this. You always
follow your gut; you don't buy what everybody else says
can't work. Your counterpart even said that what you were
trying to do, analyze wormhole space and matter at the
quantum level, was impossible. Then she got sort of a blank
look on her face, though. I'm willing to bet she'll be able
to pick up where you left off with no problem."

"I still should have...I should have done something.
Thought of this possibility before it was too late."

"Well, it is too late. Fretting yourself now'll help
nobody."

"Mmm," Jadzia muttered behind her hand, which had been
rubbing her forehead and now covered her eyes. "Maybe so.
But tell me this. How did you feel at the look Julian gave
you--whenever it was, exactly--as soon as he began to
realize you really weren't his husband?"

Miles was quiet.

"That's what I thought," Jadzia said. "I'm hungry. Care to
join me in a bowl of gumbo?"

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

Jadzia's door closed behind her and Miles; she said
"Computer, lock," and leaned back against it, closing her
eyes with a sigh. She reached up and pulled out her various
hairclips, then followed Miles to the sofa, where she
collapsed next to him and laid down with her head in his
lap. "Headache," she informed him.

"Only if you'll do me next," Miles said, rubbing her
temples.

She groaned in relief. "How do people *stand* having to
work through stages like that? Everything takes three times
as long, and I lost half my ideas through it all taking so
much time to implement."

"You never have been that good at delegating, darlin'."

"I've never had to be, on my own projects. Now I know why
Melora was so touchy. This sort of thing is maddening. I
don't know how you do it."

"I've got only one pair of hands, that's how." He paused in
his ministrations long enough to tap his badge. "O'Brien to
Bashir."

"Bashir here."

"Jadzia and I are back at her place."

"I'll be there directly. No trouble with the alarms?"

"Mine went off once," Jadzia said. "Miles dragged me back
into the subspace jamming enclosure by my hair,
practically."

"Good work, Chief. See you in a moment."

Miles continued rubbing Jadzia into near-somnolence until
the door signal sounded. "Come in," she called loud enough
to deactivate the lock.

Julian entered, brandishing a medical tricorder. He
proceeded to scan them both, Jadzia first. "Excellent.
You're both still stable. How's it going?"

"Our teams are installing the array now," Miles told him.
"Nerys is overseeing it. We've given her a couple of
checklists; she plans to go over every crevice of the
Defiant to make certain there are no instruments active
that generate a subspace field pulse, except for the
sensors we'll need, and those scanners themselves we've
moved to the main sensory, not close enough to the bridge
to be a problem."

"Good. Kira will certainly be thorough. Jadzia, you look
terrible."

"I feel terrible," she said in what was, for her, a
snappish tone. "What have you got for a royal headache?"

"As a matter of fact..." Julian unlimbered a hypo and
canister from his medkit and said "Miles, let go of her
head a moment."

Miles moved his hand, and Julian shot Jadzia in the neck
with the hypo. "And Miles, it's time for your andelizine
shot." He began preparing the injection.

When that was administered, both of them began to perk up a
bit. Jadzia sat up slowly, assisted by Miles. "You'll never
guess what we finally decided to tell people was the reason
we can't get near half the instruments."

"We blamed you," Miles said.

"Me?" Julian looked puzzled, setting his kit down and
taking a chair.

"We said we'd been exposed to high-level radiation working
down near the reactor core, and we'd both had subdermal
hyronolin dispensers implanted, and a subspace field pulse
might throw off the dosage timer," Jadzia explained.

Julian frowned. "But it wouldn't. Don't they know that?"

"That's where you came in. We said you were trying a new
long-term dispensing unit that doesn't work like the
short-term model," Miles said.

"Oh. Did they buy it?"

"I think they were a little confused, but by and large,
yeah, they did," Jadzia said. "I am *so* tired...Miles,
would you carry me to bed, undress me and tell me a story?"

"I don't think I have that much imagination left."

"So sing me a song."

"Come on, then." Miles stood and helped Jadzia up, then
conducted her to the bedroom. "I'll be right back, love."

"Right," Julian said absently, heading for the desk
terminal.

The door closed behind them and Jadzia fell over on the
Cardassian bed. "Ugh. I wonder why this universe's Jadzia
never got around to getting a real bed."

"She's dating a Klingon. They're supposed to like sleeping
on bricks." Miles was undoing Jadzia's uniform; he got her
to sit up so he could peel the layers off her, then went to
the closet where her dresser was, pulled out a nightgown,
came back with it and said "Here you go, now." She raised
her arms and he dropped the gown onto her, then held his
hands out and said "Boots." She lifted one foot at a time
for him to haul them off, then stood up to help him pull
her uniform the rest of the way off.

As he put her boots in the closet and dumped her uniform
down the laundry chute, she fell over again and said "I
almost wish Julian had made us stay in bed longer."

"You'd have complained just as loud if he had."

"You're right. Miles..." she held her hands out to him and
he sat down by her, taking them. She paused, then continued
"This is going to work, isn't it?"

"We'll make it work. Julian and Keiko must be at their
wits' end without us."

"Don't remind me. I just wish...we had a more solid idea of
what we're going to do once we get this fissure generated."

"If you come up with a way to test our ideas any more
surely than the computer models, let me know. I'd like a
little more certainty, too."

"I know." She held out her arms and they embraced for a
moment; then he let her back down to the mattress.

"Will you be in later?"

"Soon." He kissed her and pulled her coverlet up, then went
out, calling the lights back down as he did so.

"Poor thing's worn to a ghost," Miles sighed, approaching
the desk where Julian was. "Hasn't had more than six or so
hours' sleep in the last two and a half, three days. What
have you got up, there?" He came around where he could look
at the screen.

Julian was examining some of the computer models they'd
been working with. "This is interesting..." the doctor
mused.

"Maybe too interesting. We need your input to make a report
to the Captain concerning the safety of these ideas."

"I've been working on it in my office, but I haven't seen
this last scenario. Care to enlighten me?"

"That's mostly Jadzia's idea. She thinks that if we can
isolate our own quantum signature in the fissure, once
we've generated it, we might not even need to leave the
Defiant, though we were considering taking a shuttle
through the fissure..."

"I remember that one, but I thought you'd decided the
shuttle itself would create an avenue of instability."

"It would, but we were thinking we might be able to send
the shuttle back through with your own Jadzia and Miles. My
sister's idea, though, is that we might be able to crack
the fissure open at the correct resonance using the
differential pulse, rather like flipping through the pages
of a book until you arrive at the page you want, and then
expose us both to a strong enough field pulse to
destabilize us. There shouldn't be any affect on anyone
else, and any and all Miles and Jadzias who were shifted at
the initial fissure contact and exposure to the pulse
should shift when we do."

"How can you know, though, that they'll shift back to where
they're supposed to be?"

"Think of it as...how should I put this...sort of a
trans-quantum railway, only the track is circular and the
train covers all of it--engine hitches on to its own
caboose."

"The Worm Oroborous."

"Rather like that, yes. If the engine is in a given spot
along the track, there's only one other place on the track
all of the other cars can be at the same time that the
engine is there."

"So you and Jadzia are misplaced cars."

"Right. Move one car along the lineup, and all the other
cars move too; can't have two cars in any one spot along
the track. But in Jadzia's and my case, we believe that the
car native to your universe might have been switched with
the one native to ours, leaving all the other cars in the
same spots, rather than being a rotation of all the cars to
new locations. We're considering the idea that we might
need to deal with it on that basis."

"Than...that would be why it's so terribly important not to
allow you to shift again."

"That's right. If that is the way it worked, we've been
lucky so far, even though we can't explain why the quantum
change might be happening like this rather than the way it
happened to Worf. We are fairly certain that if it's so,
there won't have been any other straight switches like this
one between any other quantum realities, since there'd be
no connection, between this universe and ours, with any of
the other cars along the line."

"I think I'm following you. So I need to make an addendum
to my part of the report...if you'll give me a moment, I
can do it right now."

"Feel free."

Julian tapped keys for a while; when he was done, he sent
the report to the Captain's office and shut the terminal
down.

Miles was sitting on the sofa, gazing thoughtfully at a
padd; Julian sat down next to him. "What's that?"

"It's a letter I'm writing for Molly and the baby. For them
to read when they're older. Explains things a bit."

Julian said quietly "In case you and my Miles don't make
it?"

Miles nodded. He felt Julian lay a hand on his shoulder and
looked up. Julian's eyes were huge. "It's that dangerous?"
he asked.

"We don't really know, love. We hope not. But even if it
were, we haven't any real choice."

Julian nodded. "You'll excuse me if I worry anyway."

Miles took the hand Julian had rested on him and held it in
both of his own. "Of course. That's what you and Keiko do
whenever Jadzia and I are off in the Defiant getting the
daylights blown out of us, her flying us through a
firefight and battling the hull integrity fields and me
down in the engine room, goading power out of the very
bulkheads and holding the plasma injection system together
with baling wire and worry beads."

Julian smiled, looking away, then glanced back. "You must
have a very patient husband."

"He's restrained decorum itself until it's certain I'm all
right. Then I'd best keep a lookout."

Julian laughed. "But he's Fleet himself."

"I know, but he was never a soldier, and as often as he is
on the Defiant too, he's medical, not combat personnel.
Though he's a hell of a wicked shot in target practice. I
do remind him of the sort of risks *he* takes, though, when
he's just determined to have it all out. Usually quiets him
down pretty quickly."

"What sort of risks?"

"You should know. You take them too. One of the most
obvious is that of all the station personnel, he's the
bloody shapeshifters' absolute favorite to impersonate. As
far back as...at least a few years, he's been getting
knocked over the head and stuffed in a closet or somewhere
while some changeling walks around wearing that gorgeous
face. Hazard of being the fellow at the gate to the Gamma
quadrant who's got the blood screening hypo, I
suppose...oh. Sorry, didn't mean to embarrass you."

Julian cackled to himself, squeezing Miles's hand. "If my
Miles ever finds out about all the things we've said to
each other...the quadrant won't be big enough to hide me."

"He'll get over it."

"How do you know that?"

"He loves you."

"How can you be so sure?"

Miles shrugged. "Because I do." At the expression on
Julian's face, Miles smiled. "Ah, that look. It usually
means I'm about to get kissed."
Julian laughed with him, then leaned over and kissed his
cheek. "I love you too, Miles."

"Have you told your fellow that?"

"Several times. He said it to me, once, too."

"Then you've nothing to worry about, have you?" Miles
squeezed Julian's hand a final time and stood up. "I'm
going to crawl in with Jadzia; we'll be on the Defiant
first thing in the morning, if all goes well with the
installation. Will you be keeping watch again tonight?"

"I think I'd better. I doubt I'd ever forgive myself if
anything untoward happened."

"I'll leave the door open, then." He went back to the
bedroom.

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

Miles woke to an earsplitting shriek.

His hand flew up to the alarm; as he shot out of bed and
pulled his robe on, the bedroom door slid open to reveal
Julian, awake and dressed for some while, coming at him
with a tricorder. He didn't manage to evade Julian's grab
on his way out the door, but he did manage to keep moving,
pulling Julian with him.

In the front room, Jadzia was just emerging from Molly's
room, still in her nightgown, dark hair every which way.
She had one hand to the blaring monitor on her parietal
bone, too.

"You're in flux," Julian said tightly, "and there's no
cause here--it must be another quantum reality--"

"Can you tell which direction the flux is taking?" Jadzia
demanded, running up to get a look at the tricorder.

"Not yet. It's vacillating rapidly. Could it be my Miles
and Jadz?"

"It might, but if we aren't lucky--" Miles began.

Jadzia cut in with "We already know there are no dangerous
instruments nearby here, but if another Miles or Jadzia
comes across one--"

"That's right, you could all be in flux, to the farthest
reach of the fissure across

quanta--"

"Commander, would it help to get us into a--"

"Miles!" Julian shouted, as the Chief realized that the
whole panicked discussion had been rendered academic. He
didn't feel the floor when he hit it, or Jadzia landing on
top of him.

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

"We're approaching the coordinates," Jadzia said, "I'm
taking us out of warp."

"You were right about one thing," said Miles, from the
engineering station. "This is the emptiest piece of space
I've seen since the Coal Sack. All morning at maximum warp
to reach an interstellar desert."

"You were never in the Coal Sack," Julian quibbled from the
science console.

"I didn't say I'd been there, just that I've seen it."

"Are we ready, Old Man?" Sisko wanted to know.

"As we'll ever be." She got up from the conn and Julian
stood to let her get at the console they'd configured to
control the operation. He moved to the rear of the bridge
and put an arm around Keiko, who was staring fixedly at the
viewscreen. Kira moved from the weapons console to conn.

"Julian," Miles could hear Keiko murmuring, "exactly how
dangerous is this?"

"It's not so much danger...well. Their main concern is
along the lines of whether it will work as they're hoping.
As I told you, there isn't any way to test their theories
except to make the attempt; so the biggest danger is
aggravating the problem. Holding the fissure at a specific
resonance frequency may enable them to create a viable
bridge between our reality and theirs, or--especially if
they're wrong and this *is* a musical-slidewalk sort of
shift--the operation may simply precipitate further shifts.
But they've been over the problem every way they know how.
It easily could work."

"Or we could easily wind up with Smiley."

"Kira's been talking to you, then," Julian sighed.

"She was trying to reassure me, Julian. It's not her fault
I asked the wrong questions and she had to tell me
something other than what I wanted to hear."

"Miles?" Jadzia said.

"Ready here," he told her.

Jadzia let out a sigh and allowed her head to bow a moment.

Out of the corner of his eye Miles saw Keiko moving away
from Julian and toward Jadzia. She touched the larger
woman's shoulder; Jadzia turned and looked up at her. Keiko
was quiet a moment, meeting Jadzia's gaze; then she said
"Good luck." She leaned down to slide her arms around
Jadzia's shoulders and kiss her lightly.

The barest welling of tears glistened in Jadzia's blue eyes
and she hugged Keiko back with fervor. "Thank you," she
half-whispered. "Thank you, Keiko."

"Same here." Miles turned at the words to see Julian
standing behind him. He stood up and accepted Julian's
embrace. They moved back a bit from each other and Miles
said "See you 'round the universe of possibility, love."

"Count on it." Julian kissed him and let him go. He turned
back to his console as Keiko and Julian faded back out of
the way again, Keiko gripping Julian's hand.

"All set?"

"Ready, Benjamin."

"Good luck, Old Man, Chief O'Brien. Engage the array."

"Engaging."

At first nothing seemed to happen. Then Jadzia said "I'm
taking the particle burst amplitude up, Miles. Let me know
when you detect a disturbance."

"Right."

Dead silence on the bridge. Miles barely noticed that Kira
had to keep turning her attention back to the conn whenever
it started wandering toward Jadzia's back.

"I'm getting something," he said, distractions forgotten.

"Pin it down."

"Disturbance...thirty-one point six kilometers in length.
Very weak resonance signature...I can't measure it yet."

"Are you sure?"

"It's getting stronger...confirmed. I'm picking
up...eighteen...thirty-six...it's a geometric progression.
Differing signatures. Starting to melt into each other,
create one vacillation..."

"I'll try to hold it here. Beginning differential pulse
scan. Does anything you've picked up so far match our
signature, Miles?"

"Still scanning."

"Nerys? Time to engage the modified warp field."

"Engaging the field."

On the screen, a small light kindled; the fissure was
distant enough that it appeared as a single patch of dim,
smoky luminescence. It developed a bluish halo around its
outer edges and continued to shine.

"That's it, all right," Miles muttered, barely glancing up
from his console long enough to note the phenomenon.

"Is the resonance stabilizing, Miles?"

"We're still holding...I'm getting a resonance at our own
signature. I'm going to try to narrow the array's signal."

"I'm with you," Jadzia said tightly, her eyes and fingers
moving constantly over her board.

"Blast," Miles muttered. "I'm losing the signature. I'm
going to broaden the array's signal spectrum again and try
to get it back."

"Still with you."

Keiko let go of Julian's hand in order to put her arms
around him and hide her face in his chest. He whispered
something to her as he patted her that Miles was too busy
to catch.

"I've got the signature," he said.

"Matching you with the differential pulse," Jadzia
responded, playing a veritable symphony of quantum
possibility on the science station board.

"Narrowing the array's signal," Miles said, "ready with the
pulse scan signal override."

"Ready."

"I've got the signature. Ready override...*now*."

The light on the screen dimmed to a comparative flicker of
its former self.

"Dax?" Kira wondered.

"It's all right," the Trill said. "We're limiting the
fissure to one signature. If we're right, it should now
exist only in our universe and yours. On our side, the
signature it evinces would be your universe's, and on this
side, ours. Miles..."

"Hang on. I'm getting some drift even under the override,
and we can't afford to bring the scanner on line until I've
got it stable."

"I don't know how much longer I can keep the differential
pulse from knocking out the array's signal. The override is
getting heavy."

"One second...and...there, that's got it. We're ready for
the subspace field pulse."

"Looks like it. Nerys?"

"Bringing the scanner on line." Kira, tight-lipped and
fierce-eyed, gave the necessary computer commands from the
conn. "Is everything all--Dax!"

Jadzia was toppling sideways in an attempt not to fall on
her board. Miles felt the ship spin and grabbed the edge of
his console, trying to push himself away from it. He felt
someone grab his arm and then the board's lights all went
black.

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

"Jadz! Come on, come around--"

Miles reflected that if this was home, he remembered the
gravity being considerably less. Then the weight was
removed from his back and he could breathe.

"That's it, just lean back," Julian's voice came again.
"Miles?" The Chief heard a tricorder whirring somewhere
overhead. "Miles." Someone was turning him over. He fought
to stabilize his surroundings and open his eyes. He finally
did, and as they began to focus, Miles whispered
uncertainly "That you, love?"

"Miles!" Julian dropped the tricorder and was all over him.

"Easy...I'm still a bit woozy," he cautioned the younger
man. "Jadzia should be here, too--"

"Not for long," she said, heading for the front door, still
a touch wobbly but moving fast. Julian pried himself off
Miles long enough to regain his tricorder and get her by
the shoulder to scan her.

"Thank *God*," he sighed, and hugged her for all he was
worth. She hugged back briefly and then broke for the door
again.

Julian plopped down in the floor next to Miles, helping him
sit up. "All right?"

"I'm fine." Miles grabbed the sofa arm and got up to it,
then rested his forehead in his hands and just breathed for
a few minutes.

Julian was tapping his badge. "Bashir to Ishikawa."

"Ishikawa."

"Keiko, I thought you might like to know that your wife is
on her way back to you, as fast as her bare feet will carry
her."

"*What*?"

"Jadzia and Miles came through for us and their
counterparts. They're home." His grin was infectious, and
Miles began to laugh with relief.

Keiko's voice whispered "Oh my God--" and the comm went
silent.

Julian wrapped his arms around Miles, and Miles hugged
back, but just before there was no light to see between
them Julian touched his badge again. "Bashir to Sisko."

"Sisko here."

"We've got our lost sheep back, Captain. Miles and Jadzia
are home."

Sisko gave one of his falsetto laughs and crowed "That's
great, doctor! Does Keiko know?"

"I've just called her. Jadz is on her way there."

"Marvelous. Let me speak to the Chief."

"Right here, Captain."

"Is the danger over, or is your signature still unstable?"

"We're stable enough. We're in the right universe and the
fissure is almost certainly closed. All they have to do at
that end is shut down the array signal...it's a bit of a
story, but our counterparts will know what to do."

"Good. You and your husband are both off duty for the next
two days."

"Thank you, sir. We appreciate it."

"Sisko out."

Just before Julian could pounce, Miles said "When we get
around to it...I've got a lot to tell you about."

"Really?" Julian mused, smiling at him. "Like what?" He
pulled Miles's robe open and yanked on the drawstring of
his pajama pants.

"Oh, my--it'll wait."

"Good."

---

Not many people had ever seen, or would ever see again, the
spectacle of all nearly-two muscular, curvaceous meters of
Jadzia Dax tearing down the promenade in a knee-length
slit-sided nightgown, hair flying.

Not many people had ever seen or would ever see again the
spectacle of all one and two-thirds meters of the swift and
graceful Keiko Ishikawa, tearing up the other way, in a
short, dark blue silk kimono robe, legs and feet as bare as
Jadzia's.

And most people who saw were very pleased at the privilege
of being there to witness the diminutive Keiko leaping
higher than a hare and landing square in the arms of the
teary-eyed Jadzia, who held her close in a threshold carry
and spun around and around and around with her until they
were both exhausted from laughing and crying.

"I love you, Keiko," Jadzia whispered before finally
setting Keiko back on her feet.

"I love you too," Keiko said, kissed her, and finished
"Let's get back to the girls."

Jadzia wiped her eyes, smiling, and slid an arm around her
wife. They started back down the promenade.

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

"Shut the--the array, the field pulse--" Jadzia was
whispering as Sisko pulled her back up into her chair while
Julian scanned her. Miles, sitting blearily up against the
engineering console, took the hands Keiko extended to him
and managed to get back into his own seat, from whence he
surveyed the board as quickly as he could and said
"Where's...ah. Using the system override." He manipulated
controls and watched as the dim, flickering light faded
from the screen.

"Their signatures are still in flux," Julian said, "I can't
be certain..."

"Keiko?" Miles turned back to where Keiko was standing,
gazing searchingly into his eyes. "Is it you, m'love?"

"Miles," Keiko whispered, and flung herself on him. Awash
in a relief so profound he thought he might faint, he
caught her.

Sisko, still holding Jadzia's hand, glanced over at them.
"I believe, Doctor," he said "that we can assume this is
our Miles and Jadzia."

"You're not my brother, are you, Julian?" Jadzia asked
hesitantly.

"What?!" Kira wondered, resuming her seat at the conn.

"No," Julian reassured her, smiling broadly. "I'm your
nemesis."

"It's good to see you, nemesis," Jadzia sighed, then
managed, patting Sisko's hand, to focus her eyes on her
board. "I guess my counterpart and her Miles did all right,
didn't they?"

"They did great," Sisko said, taking the Captain's chair.
"Let's get the both of you home. Major?"

"Aye, sir, home it is."

Julian was now scanning Miles. "Hello, Chief. How was your
visit to the land of Might-Have-Been?"

"Tiring," Miles said, resting his head on Keiko's shoulder.
"Your counterpart is an--is completely--ahm--"

"Completely what?" Julian was busy correlating his readings
and didn't notice the look Miles exchanged with Keiko.

"Obnoxious," Jadzia said. She tipped Miles and Keiko a wink
behind Julian's back and smiled.

---
(--quantum jump--out--)
---

"He said that?" Miles actually bestirred himself enough to
raise up on one elbow to where he could look at Julian.

"Oh, come, Miles. It's nothing I didn't know. You've said
it yourself," Julian teased.

"He must've thought pretty highly of you, but why that
should surprise me I don't know." One of Miles's hands
began tracing patterns on the dusky skin of Julian's back.

"You know, you still haven't told me much about this other
Julian of yours."

"*He's* not mine," Miles leaned down to whisper in Julian's
ear, then kissed the ear. "You are."

Moving in closer to Miles, Julian smiled and said "Call him
what you like. I'm curious, that's all."

"It's all right. He was...a lot like you."

"How?"

"He was dedicated. Inspired. Well, brilliant, really. He
went considerably out of his way for me. He was...very
gentle and loving. Though he nearly blew scotch out his
ears when I commented about your enhancements. His Miles
doesn't know."

"I know he doesn't. And before you ask, I didn't snitch on
my counterpart. That Miles still doesn't know. So...gentle,
and loving. That did include you?"

"Yes, it did. Not like this, no, but...I can only think
that my counterpart's missing out on quite a bit. Which, I
take it, you demonstrated to him?"

"With every fiber of my being."

Miles chuckled. "How'd he handle it?"

"Nearly as well as you. But not quite." Julian nuzzled in
closer to Miles, who closed his eyes and focused on the
feeling of soft breath caressing his neck.

"Gods, I missed you," Miles whispered.
"I was very nearly desperate for you," Julian said softly,
and they kissed deeply, then settled back into their former
position.

"It's such a strange thought," Julian continued after a
moment. "You married to Keiko, Jadz and me not married at
all...and Molly...what was she like, on that side?"

"She was fairer than Keiko, but otherwise--except looking
as though she'll likely grow up to be taller than
Keiko--she was her mother's very image."

"And the baby?"

"He had Keiko's coloring and eyes, but otherwise he was a
ringer for my father. And he perked right up whenever he
heard Nerys's voice."

"Well, he certainly doesn't lack for family."

"No, he doesn't..." Miles's expression grew distant.

He thought about the easy, relaxed way that the other
Julian had accepted him, had treated him as if Miles's
feelings were paramount and Julian's own only an irrelevant
distraction. His bedside manner, he'd said. Well, Miles's
husband had the most reassuring, competent bedside manner
Miles had ever seen, too. But he wondered how many aspects
of his own Julian, and his own Julian's life, would be
different if he hadn't found someone to whom he could
reveal those procedures he'd undergone so long ago.

And that other Julian had given every evidence of being
happy and well-adjusted, despite the possible loss of his
best friend. But Miles had been too close to a damn near
identical Julian, for too long, to completely believe it.
Well-adjusted he might appear, but so alone...

He remembered his husband telling him about the treatments.
His Julian'd spoken haltingly, almost shaking with the fear
that this man he'd fallen so hard for would reject him out
of hand, or resent the burden of a dangerous secret about
which Miles would now have to decide what to do--or even
that Miles might decide to turn Julian in. He remembered
the heartbreaking relief with which Julian had greeted
Miles's immediate words and caresses of sympathy and
reassurance.

He hoped that someday, the other Julian would be able to
tell his Miles the ironclad secret that no one but his
parents knew.

"Miles, are you asleep?"

Miles said "Oh. Sorry, love. What did you say?"

"Where were you just now?"

"Thinking...I promised Molly we'd do some coloring with her
tomorrow afternoon. With all this attention focused on the
baby, I don't want her to start feeling that we've
forgotten about her."

"Thoughtful as always," Julian murmured. "I just said that
the other Miles was much like you as well."

"What ways?"

"For one, he was a wonderful father. He barely lost his
equilibrium. He seemed to feel it was his obligation to
take care of all of us--the girls in particular, but me as
well, and after we lost Jadz, Keiko too, if he could have,
though I could see how difficult it would be for him." He
slid a hand up Miles's chest, saying "And...his voice undid
me the way yours does...and he knew what I like." Julian
chuckled, low in his chest. "How did he happen to come by
that information, I wonder?"

"He and his Julian made love once. It was to help him fight
nightmares that were plaguing him from Argratha."

"Only once?"

"That's what your counterpart said."

"Well, that Miles certainly hasn't forgotten anything."

"Did I, after our first time?"

"No," Julian agreed, snuggling closer. "But you've never
allowed that to interfere with using your imagination." He
kissed Miles, and Miles realized that he'd be going to work
tomorrow with only half a night's sleep for about the
millionth time.

And for this and every single other time, he profoundly
thanked all Gods.

---
(--quantum jump--back--)
---

"He said *that*?" Miles actually lowered his dart and
turned to look at Julian. It was two days since the
switch's success.

"Oh, come, Miles. It's nothing I didn't know. You've said
it yourself."

"Think pretty highly of yourself, but why that should
surprise me at this late date I don't know." One of Miles's
darts thunked into the board.

"You know, you still haven't told me much about this other
Julian of yours."

"He's not *mine*," Miles grumbled, finishing his turn.
Julian went to retrieve the darts.

Coming back to the line, Julian smiled and said "Call him
what you like. I'm curious, that's all--your counterpart
actually seemed to admire the trait."

"He doesn't have to put up with it all the time.
Ouch--looks like all this talking is throwing your game
off." He cackled.

"Let's not get to feeling sorry for me," Julian said as
Miles went for the darts.

"No fear."

"Really, Miles. We've hardly seen each other since we got
back to the station. Give me a clue."

"I've been busy, what with finally getting to see my wife
and children again after not knowing if I ever would..."

"No one's questioning that. But we have a few spare minutes
now. Tell me, what was he like?"

Miles retrieved the darts, came back and handed them to
Julian. "He was...a lot like you."

"How?"

"Throw the darts, Julian."

"If you'll answer me."

"Fine, you throw, I'll answer." Julian toed the line and
began setting up a throw. Miles continued "He was
dedicated. Inspired. Well, brilliant, really. He loved his
family." 'With a vengeance,' Miles thought to himself.
Keiko knew, and the knowledge was taking some time to
settle--and had taken hours of talk and general examination
of the situation to deal with at all. But she could believe
that Miles had been sure his counterpart would look after
and comfort his family as well as he could while things
were so uncertain; and she believed he'd want to do the
same. Knowing that her own counterpart had been married to
someone else--"Jadzia!? Me?"--also went a long way toward
calming her nerves.

But Miles still wondered if and how he was ever going to be
able to tell Julian.

"That would include his husband, I assume?"

"Whom I was not." Miles took the darts from Julian and
shouldered him aside.

"All right, all right...it's just such a strange thought.
Us not only married, but in a legal family with Jadzia and
Keiko. Molly...what was she like, on that side?"

Miles paused, the dart's point wavering in the air, as he
considered. Finally he said "She..." he shook his head and
threw. The dart landed smack in the bull's eye. "She had
your eyes." He prepared the second dart.

"And the baby?"

"She had my nose, Keiko's eyes, the Commander's spots and
your cheekbones. And she perked right up whenever she heard
Nerys's voice."

"Well, she certainly doesn't lack for family." Julian
accepted the darts and prepared to throw.

"No, she doesn't..." back where Julian couldn't see him,
Miles let his expression get distant.

Julian really was beautiful, Miles mused, watching the
doctor take his turn--but he'd known that for quite a
while. And that other Julian hadn't been nearly the
obstreperous pest this one could be. He'd been so dark and
intense, in such fear for his husband, he almost certainly
hadn't been displaying his usual characteristics; but
still, the idea that Julian could ever look at him the way
that other Julian had...it was a whole universe's worth of
difference, of possibility--since in essence, both of them
were Julian.

And that Julian had been more than simply comfortable with
having a husband and children, he'd been in dread terror of
losing that. He'd wanted, even, to *carry* his first
daughter...

"Miles, are you asleep?"

Miles's eyes abruptly refocused and he saw Julian holding
the darts out to him. "Your turn," he said.

Miles took the darts and fought to concentrate, then took
his first throw.

"Triple twenty," Julian remarked as Miles finished his
turn. "Oh, he's back in the zone to*day*."

Miles went to fetch the darts. "Never really left it," he
replied airily. "I've just been giving you a chance to get
even." He handed the darts to Julian and stood aside.

"Thank you," Julian said, his attention on the throw, "but
I don't need your charity." The third dart thunked into the
board and he asked "Another game?"

"Maybe one," Miles said. "I promised Molly I'd do some
coloring with her this afternoon. With all this attention
focused on the baby, I don't want her to start feeling that
we've forgotten about her." Miles poised himself on the
line to throw.

"A father's work is never done," Julian commented.

"You said it." Miles threw. "Still, it's worth it." He
finished his turn and raised a penetrating gaze to Julian.
"You should give it a try sometime."

"Me? Oh..." Julian acquired a dismissive look.

"Why not? I think you'd make a great father."

"*I'm* not exactly the family type."

"Doctor Bashir, I presume?"

Miles and Julian both turned to see a balding fellow in a
Starfleet uniform approaching them. "That's me," Julian
said uncertainly.

The man replied "I'm Louis Zimmerman, director of
Holographic Imaging and Programming at the Jupiter research
station, and I'm here to make you..." he eyed Julian
narrowly. "...immortal."

---

The End