The BLTS Archive - The Pride of Lions Part Two by Blue Champage (rowan-shults@sbcglobal.net) --- SIX: "I can bitch, I can bitch, 'cause I'm better than you--it's the way that I move, the things that I do..." Elton John --- "Sing with me, sing for the years, sing for the laughter, sing for the tears..." Ezri tapped with timorous lightness on the loose panel. In a heartbeat the soft voice had cut off and the panel was shoved aside; Keiko--Ishikawa--was standing on the bench below, holding the edge of the open duct. "Took long enough," she hissed. "That woman give up sleeping along with her--" "She's not asleep," Ezri hissed back. "She's in conference with Rintok. I think they're planning strategy; she told me not to expect her for bed--though she did say that tomorrow night I damn well CAN expect her for bed." "Surprised she's been this patient." "She wants me to *want* her, because of what my counterpart did; it wouldn't mean as much to her just to exact vengeance on me without that." "You know her that well?" "I'm a xenopsychologist." Ishikawa blinked. "Right. Anyway...?" "It took a while because I had to make it look realistic--she's not stupid; she'd never have believed a total, sudden turnaround. Besides, I'm no good at this kind of thing; I had to pull up my last host's memories and...try to be *her*, to make it believable. Had to make it look like I was going over my chances and had decided to see if she could really make life as pleasant for me as she said." "Did you manage it?" "Yes, barely. Well, Jadzia managed it. I could never have finessed a tour of the bridge--well, all the points of interest on the ship; mentioning the bridge or engineering specifically would have blown the whole thing." "You've had the look you need, then. What's our time frame now?" "We can thank the stars this yacht isn't the most powerful thing in the quadrant; there are more ships than yours being towed to Qo'noS to show off. We've got maybe nine hours, depending on how long the Intendant stays closeted with Rintok. There are two Generals and three Council members aboard as well, and as near as I could tell they're involved in the discussion, too--it could go on until shortly before we reach Qo'noS, but she might get bored once she's no longer near the center of the issues being debated, and come looking for me to pet her ego--or maybe her sense of survival, which is a dilly from what I've seen, will compel her to stay for the whole thing so she won't miss particulars. With her personality, it's just going to depend on her mood. I suppose it's a chance we'll have to take--" "That's about the size of it. You sure you know your stuff as far as Klingon technology goes?" "Jadzia does." "I'd shake that woman's hand if she weren't dead." "Ishikawa, I'd just like to say that the only reason I'm trying this plan is the near-certainty that we're both going to get killed carrying it out. I can't let the Intendant use me against Benjamin. I'm a Starfleet officer, and if it comes to it he *should* just call her threat...but I'd rather he didn't have to make that choice." "Funny, that's the reason I'm doing it, too. I can't let myself be used for a few evening's bloody entertainment by whoever it is managed to get dibs on me. You know for sure that's the deal, then?" "She told Rintok my Sisko wants a piece of the equipment and general wealth he can get by bargaining with the Regent, who they're assuming is going to be Rintok, because Sisko's agreed to provide technology that will counter the cloaking devices--once he's properly recompensed--and Rintok will be the one presenting it to the Alliance. This is supposed to be because my Sisko is starting a power buildup of his own on our side. Since that makes a lot of sense to the Klingons, and none of them are really that familiar with the Federation, they're not questioning it. I'm supposed to be both a good-faith hostage and a negotiator for Sisko. The Intendant gave Rintok to understand that she doesn't intend to hold to her side of the bargain, and that I'm in agreement with her on this because we're lovers and I'm going to stay with her and live in the lap of luxury." "Pee-*yew*." "Yes, I think even the Intendant is a little put off by the sheer tabloid smarminess of it all, but she knows what Rintok will respond to and she's using it. Obviously, what she really intends is simple extortion against my Sisko. His best friend being the alternate of her Ezri is the cherry on the sundae for her...but she seems to be awfully fond of cherries." "That's what I've heard, all right." "One piece of good news; I'm free to move around the ship, except into the areas that are usually restricted anyway." "That's helpful." "Bad news is that I've got my own personal honor guard." "Guess she doesn't quite trust you yet." "No, I think she really intends it for my safety. I'm not a Terran, but I'm from a nonallied race, not much better in the Alliance's eyes. If I'm going to be crawling through ducts anyway, it's not as though it matters; and I can tell them to see I'm not disturbed by anyone but the Intendant or Rintok." "We're going to need real weapons, Ezri." "I've tried to get to the armory--I saw where it was when we passed, but the forcefield goes through the bulkheads--" "I know, that's what I'm getting to. Tell your guards you want to go for a stroll around the ship, admire the arch-General's taste in art or something--" "Ick." "I know, but they'll believe it. You'll have to give me some warning about when you're going to be doing it and tell me your exact route, what points you're going to pass when. I'm going to meet you." "And do what?" "Get us some suitable weapons, and let the world see that you were out of your quarters, walking around the ship, in case the Intendant comes back to your cabins with a case of tedium in need of alleviation. That you're gone won't be so immediately alarming then. But we need to settle our timetable in other areas, too, and I need to know if you can do a few of the jury-rigging things I have in mind. Plus I don't know the service accesses; I'll need a few pointers there. You bring that tool you made?" "Here." Ezri passed it down. "I don't think we're going to get a better opportunity in the time we have left; we'd better take our shot." "They're going to feed me and take me to the jakes soon; we'll have to wait until after that, shouldn't be long. From what you've seen of the bridge control circuitry you can get to through the ducts, do you think you can rig a time-delay?" "On what?" "First off..." --- They entered a gallery-style viewing lounge in the starboard aft section of the ship; Ezri continued to stroll, giving the impression of someone taking in the decor and the view out the ports. She paused near one wall, ostensibly to admire a statue of one man in the act of pulling another man's heart out of his chest--Curzon noted ('No, damn it! *I'm* noticing it!') that it was the primary heart, indicating that the victory, while something of a foregone conclusion, was still in progress. She waited as long as she thought she could get away with, then emerged from the narrow arch of red-veined stone and continued down the row of sculptures, saying loudly, as though in amazement, "I'm surprised there's no one here but us! These sculptures are magnificent, I'd think there would be people here constantly. The arch-general has such magnificent taste. Could you explain this one to me--" she eyed the ceiling, then made for one of the statues up ahead, directing her voice upward as much as she could manage. "This one, the blue stone--who's the first of those three women with bat'telhs?" It was Lady Lukara, and her sisters, of course. The two guards looked at each other, then followed her slowly. They had been uncertain all this time how to treat her; finally they just kept calling her "hostage" and giving her indifferent deference. The woman, coming up on her left, said "That is the lady Lukara, hostage. She was one of the greatest warriors of our people--Kahless was the only one greater." "And the other two women?" "Her sisters, B'Elres and Ko--" Ezri was knocked backward into the statue as the woman suddenly jerked forward, hammered to the floor like a nail bent in the process. A bolt of black lightning had shot from an overhead vent and contacted the nape of her neck, bootheels first. The other guard instantly seized his weapon; Ezri pushed off the statue's base and attached herself to his arm, was promptly flung four or five meters and landed with a grunt on a large, thickly padded dais. Emony used her momentum to spring back up; Ezri landed off-kilter and went to one knee, looked up-- --and was clobbered by the tumbling body of the guard who'd tossed her aside. She didn't have the air to scream, but she did manage to gag slightly as the huge weight, covered in armor, crushed her to the thick rug. He was still moving, shaking his massive head and struggling to rise; she managed to clamp on around his neck with one arm and Jadzia yanked--and nothing happened; harder, all your strength-- There was percussive whack that knocked the Klingon's head into hers and she fell back, dazed and out of air. The huge weight was rolled off her. Ishikawa said "Sorry, but that would have taken all day. You *can* black a Klingon out with that move, but people our size need a better position than you had--if you know moves like that, why didn't you know--never mind." Ishikawa hauled Ezri to her feet. "Just a second." She pulled the disruptor from one of the Klingon's belts, flipped a switch up twice, pointed it-- The leather-clad arm was knocked down. "What?" She hissed. "It's all right, they don't monitor for disruptor fire unless--" "You don't have to kill them." "What'd you wanna do, adopt them?" "You knocked them out, that's all we need!" "Won't last long. It's hard to crack a Klingon skull." "So stun them. You set that disruptor on maximum!" "What? Look, maybe Klingon disruptors have stun settings in your universe, but they don't here. We need to vaporize them to keep them from being found." "We don't kill them. Listen--if we're caught--" Ezri wracked her brain for a reason Ishikawa might understand. Personal interest was always good with this sort of culture, she knew. "--I still have a chance. But if I'm party to killing Klingons they'll kill me too!" "That's not what you said when--damn it, we don't have time for this. Listen, the only way to keep from a killing shot with a disruptor is to wing someone at a non-vaporizing setting instead of hitting them dead-on, and--" "So wing him!" "That'll just wake him up faster--" "So wing him in the head or something!" Ishikawa glared at her, then said "Help me get his armor off." They used the straps of their armor to bind and gag the guards, then hid them in separate alcoves. Ishikawa cast constant glances over her shoulder while this was going on. "You're a damn fool. As though our chances weren't bad enough--damn Federations--" "How are we going to get back into that duct?" "Take this." "I don't--" she gasped as her hand flashed out-- --and Joran took the weapon, aiming it at the unconscious Klingon. She could hear him. "Don't be a fool, Ezri! It's him or you! Him or you--don't think--just pull the trigger, pull the trigger--DO IT--" She struggled, eyes squinching closed. "Ezri, what is it? Did you get hurt when he landed on you?" 'Someone take it--someone else take it--Torias! Take the disruptor, take it from Joran--' She felt her grip falter, then refirm. Thoughts of bodily sectors that could be struck by a high-powered disruptor bolt without necessarily killing the victim ran through her head, made diagrams of size, species, trajectory and distance behind her eyes. "Thanks, Torias," she whispered. His knowledge might be out of date, but it would be far better than nothing. Thank the stars he'd been planning to be a career military officer before he discovered flying. Ishikawa spat "Would you come on? We've been here nearly twenty minutes!" "Like I said, how are we going to get back up there?" "I'll show you--couldn't you have worn something a little more serviceable?" "My options were limited. She took my uniform and she seems to like me in gossamer." Ishikawa leaned down and ripped the side-seam of the translucent gown up to the thigh on one side. "There, now you can move your legs. Can you balance me on your shoulders? If you can't, all you have to do is hold firm, I'll do the rest." "It's all right, Emony ca--I mean, yes, I can do it." Ishikawa climbed a statue with two quick bounds, then stepped out on Ezri's shoulders. "Ow," Ezri whined, making a face. "You should've worn something that didn't leave your shoulders bare." "I didn't know I was going to have your boots on them!" At least the things didn't have hard soles. She tilted her head and rolled her eyes back just enough to see Ishikawa reach for the edge of the open panel, so she could take the pressure with her knees-- --but the jolt when Ishikawa pushed off was so short and sharp she staggered, reflexively trying to keep her balancing grip on Ishikawa's boots, which were, however, no longer there. She looked up again, and the woman was already lying full-length in the duct, leaning over and extending her arms. "Come on, climb the statue and grab on!" She must have leaped upward to the opening as easily as she'd shot down from it. Deciding to worry about it later, Ezri glanced around in frustration, then tugged at the edge of the gown down at the hemline, where Ishikawa had made her own tear, and managed to rip loose a spiraling, uneven strip that was long enough to tie around her waist. She made sure the disruptor was on its lowest setting, thrust it though her improvised belt and mounted the statue. "Thanks for the lift, Lukara," she muttered as she balanced on the outstretched stone bat'tehl, stretching upward to take Ishikawa's small hands--'no smaller than mine,' she reminded herself. 'My hands. Mine...I appreciate this, everybody, but they're still *my* hands...' --- "That's a yacht?!" "What did you think it was?" "It's enormous." "Only the best for Rintok. We're fortunate he took it; saved us a great deal of time locating him. Coming in alongside. Ready scanners." "Scanning...she's there." "Great. I'm glad they're not moving any more quickly. Those prize ships they've got in tow probably have something to do with it." "That one looks like--" "A raider from the Paelan shipyard, like this one, you're right." He gazed at the scanning data of the ship I'd noticed, his brow furrowing. "Curious. How many human lifesigns?" "Twenty...twenty-seven." "Servants, I'm sure, but I'd bet at least one of them is the erstwhile captain of that ship. Be nice if we could get him too, but we'll be lucky to get Dax. Have you pinpointed her signal?" "She's moving, but it shouldn't be any problem." "Get ready; we may make this snatch clear after all, if we can get out of here before they realize there's a cloaked ship in the vicinity, get a message out and blockade with crossfire." "Sounds too complex to set up quickly." "We're dealing with nervous Klingons, Julian. They don't like feeling nervous." "You've a point." I frowned. "I'm getting some interference." He looked at what I was doing. "She's...in the engine room, or very close. That's impulse spillage." "Can we beam her through it?" He communed with his board. "Mm...I wouldn't want to try it. The augmentations might be enough to keep her signal clean, but never having tried them..." "It doesn't make me very happy, either, but neither does her being on that ship to begin with." "Be very certain. We won't be able to tell for a fact that she's alone; we have to assume the attempt will be observed. If her pattern destabilizes in the buffer and we have to abort the attempt, they'll be warned. Their shields will go up, and that'll be the end of that." "I know. Perhaps if we wait, she'll move." "That was going to be my next suggestion, but why would she be hovering around in engineering anyway?" "How should I know?" "All I meant was, if she's hiding there deliberately to try to fool a scan, she won't move until they catch her." "We don't know that she's hiding." "No, not yet we don't." --- "What's taking so long?" "It's this time delay you want. I can cut power to the tractor in a split second, but to make it cut out after a certain amount of time, I've basically got to build a whole new circuit, and finding the components I need in here without alerting anyone is--" "We've got to be where we can make a run for it when the beam fails, either transporter room or the escape shuttle bay, and it'd better be the trans--shhh!" One of the engineers was walking by below; Ezri watched the movement through the circuitry she was working in, holding still. When all seemed clear, she resumed. "We've got a little time. We're only going to have one shot at this, you know." "Couldn't you have done this from the bridge along with everything else?" "Not with a time delay I couldn't, not with no more than I have to work with, unless you want the circuit to be obvious to everyone with eyes. The only way would have been to tie everything in to one timer--" "Which would have been ideal." "I know, but it also would have been obvious. Trust me." "I haven't got much choice. Can you just take the main power grid down?" "And keep power up to the transporters?" Ishikawa sighed. "My ship's powered down. We're going to need envirosuits or at least oxygen. If we can't get suits, we'll just have to hope pressure's up aboard or we can move fast enough to start pressurizing before we lose useful consciousness." "How fast can you repressurize?" Ishikawa made a frustrated swing at the conduit wall, stopping herself just in time. "If I could just communicate with my ship I could do it from here." "Any reason you shouldn't?" "Several, stomping around down there in hobnailed boots." "No, I mean would the signal need to be powerful or complex enough to be detectable here or on the bridge?" "No. I can send a series of low-EM frequency pulses that'd do it. In my line of work it pays to keep a low profile." "You see that station over there?" Ezri, continuing her work, gestured with her head toward a board that was partially concealed from the rest of the engine room. "Yeah. But this conduit doesn't go that way. I'd have to find my way around to it." "I think I can give you a distraction, but you'll only have a couple of minutes. Head down through the far end of the duct and wait until it's clear. If we can use your ship's transporter, I *can* rig the power grid to go down. But this involves showing myself, so..." "You know what? No matter what plans we come up with, they always come down to this; we're only going to have one shot." "Is that surprising?" "Not really." --- Time was beginning to wear. "Is she any farther from the source of the spill?" "No. She's closer." "Damn it." "Julie...would that spill create any problem as far as beaming *in* to the area?" "Likely not, it's a matter of our being able to pick up and interpret the signal, not so much the signal's actually being...oh, no. Forget it, Julian." "Why? We'll find some out-of-the-way spot, I'll beam over with an enhancer--" "And get her and yourself both killed." "Your faith in my ability is touching. Have you another idea?" He considered for a while, then said "I'll go." "This is your ship. We need you here, I can't fly or run it as well as you can. And we need every edge." "I'll go." "Julie, if they detect the beam, whoever goes over there will be trapped when the shields go up, and if they *trace* the beam some terribly fancy flying is going to be called for here to avoid their inimical attentions while staying in range for a possible retrieval. I can do it, but you can do it better." "I'll go." He got up and headed aft. "I'm going to have to remember that argument technique," I sighed to myself, and followed him. He was putting together a single-unit enhancer. "Once you pick up the enhancer's signal, just lock on and beam anything within a meter of it." "What if it's a Klingon?" "Your Chief's sensors should be able to keep you from making *that* mistake, impulse particle spill or no." He began buckling his gun on, then apparently changed his mind and laid it aside; he went to a storage bin and opened it on as impressive an array of weaponry as I'd ever seen stuffed into such a small space. I wouldn't have been able to identify most of it; I could, though, identify the item he chose. It was technically known as a "knife", about thirty centimeters long. He unbuckled the guard strap that held it in the sheathe and thrust it, sheathe and all, through his belt. "Come on. Let's get it over with." --- "You'll be all right now, hostage. We'll get to the bottom of this." "Oh--" Ezri's hands shook in a helpless, distressed fashion as she let the engineer help her to a station chair. "It was just so--so shocking--he must have been drunk, or gone crazy--" "You shouldn't have been wandering the ship without your guards," the man said. Ezri hiccuped, wiping her face, stealing surreptitious glances toward the far corner of the engineering deck. She couldn't see Ishikawa; either the woman had been, done her bit and gone, or she'd never had the opportunity--Ezri hadn't been able to make sure, in the midst of her histrionics, that she'd managed to distract every last person present, though she'd certainly done her best. She was glad Jadzia had been so fond of the holosuites, and Audred had been so fond of the theater. "We should notify the Intendant," one of the other engineers was saying, and Ezri lurched up suddenly. "No, no--I'm all right, really--don't disturb her, I wouldn't want my, my silly vapors interfering with her important business." The chief engineer frowned, but nodded and said "We'll have someone escort you back to your quarters, then." Ezri was about to argue that one, too, but from the look on the woman's face there was very little to absolutely no point in that. It was only reasonable, after all. Alarm signals began whooping. "What is it?" the chief engineer snapped. "We've got a low-level leak in the thorium chamber," someone called from across the gloom. "We'll have to evacuate the deck." "Can't you lock it down?" "Yes, but the irradiation's already been severe. We'll all need treatment, and we'll have to do a sweep to clean up the mess in here before it's safe to work in again." The chief engineer cursed. "Are we going to die?" Ezri squeaked, eyes huge. Hardly; there wasn't even a leak, and it wouldn't take them long to find that out. The chief engineer ignored her, having started off toward the problem area; Ezri got up from her chair and faded back toward the wall, trying to convey the impression that she was only staying out of the way. Eventually she was able to duck into a small access passage that circled the warp core complex. If all had gone according to plan, Ishikawa would have beamed to the ship in tractor, locked onto Ezri and beamed her away; if that didn't happen, it would presumably be due to the possibility of interference from the surrounding systems in engineering. Ezri would have to try to put some distance between herself and the deck. Of course, if Ishikawa hadn't been able to get to her ship, they were both sunk. She made it out of engineering; she didn't have the tool she'd used earlier to get into the access conduits, so she was just going to have to stay out of sight. Needless to say, she didn't have the disruptor, either; Ishikawa had it. "I hope you're aboard your ship," Ezri whispered to herself as she slipped along what shadows she could find; the overopulent decor was limited here near the engineering section. Things more resembled the sort of Klingon aesthetics Dax was used to, namely none. Bare circuit pipes and auxiliary components hummed away in all their unconcealed practicality. She glanced around, looking for a likely hiding place; there were a number. At this end of the ship, and with the condition her dress was in, it wouldn't be possible to pretend she was only out for a stroll. Her assault story might wear thin with repetition. "All hell's going to break loose over here any second now--" "Then we better get ready for it." Ezri looked overhead. "Ishikawa!" "SSHH!" "What are you doing here?" "I'm hoping that when the power grid goes down, we'll be able to beam over." "Why didn't you already?" "Because I had to run for it, that's why! I managed to take my main systems off standby, but before I could go through the command codes to operate the transporter remotely your performance became uninteresting to the engineer who'd been at the station next door. I barely made it." "Why are we waiting for the power grid to go down? How are you going to operate the transporter remotely?" "When the power grid goes offline--I got hold of one of these." She held up a primitive-looking communications device. "But the signal would be easy for them to trace, we can't use it until they're otherwise occupied and the tractor's down so we can get the hell out of here. Can you work it?" "Let me see." Ezri strained upward toward the access opening Ishikawa was in; the other woman dropped the device to her hand. "I think so," she said, examining it. "I already entered my command codes. Set it up so we'll beam automatically after the grid goes down, can you?" "Um..." Ezri frowned and began to work. "I can create the message...get your transporter to lock onto this unit's signal. It'll beam *it*, and us by extension." "Good. You'd better come up, get out of sight--" "You think I can jump *that* high? There, that should do it. Come down, we'll need to be in close proximity to the unit when your transporter activates." "Okay--" Ishikawa landed lightly as a leaf, took the communicator and hung it from her belt. "But we'd better try to fade farther back, out of--uh, oh." Ezri didn't need to ask what. The voices were moving closer, along with the voluble clomp of Klingon footwear. Ishikawa frantically began shoving Ezri back; Ezri stumbled, holding Ishikawa's arm, and moved, but as they rounded a corner in the gloom it became obvious they were low on options. "Hide, back there," Ishikawa said, pushing her again, "I'll try to hold them off. Take this." She handed her the second disruptor. "If we start firing those, we'll attract even more attention--" "I'm not going to shoot right away, but you may need it, now *hide*." "What do you think I'm trying to do?" Ezri snapped, eyeing the height of the consoles and equipment around her. "If you boost me, maybe I could get on top of--" she suddenly clutched the black-clad shoulder. "What was that?" "What was what?" Ishikawa risked a glance in the direction Ezri was looking. "Up there, I saw something move--like a cat, in the dark--" Just then the first Klingon came into view and stopped, eyes widening at the sight of them; then, roaring, he charged. Ishikawa met him, levitating midway to land a double hammer-kick to his face. He fell back into the man behind him, whose grab she ducked, swinging her head so that the end of her braid flew up and smacked him square in the eyes, making him stumble, clutching at his face. Ezri saw her make a move toward the disruptor at her belt, then spied movement overhead again--as though completely unconcerned by the melee, a humanoid shape was moving--silent as stone, fluid as water--along a narrow exposed circuit pipe, sure of its perch as a...suddenly he became a waterfall, shooting over the side toward the deck-- "Julian!" He landed on the third Klingon as Ishikawa spun to deal with the fourth, drawing the woman out and away from where Julian was delivering the death stroke to the one he'd subdued. Just then the lights went out. "Julian!" she called again. Ezri scrambled in the darkness, felt her ankle grabbed, and kicked out violently; she contacted something that crunched and the hand withdrew. There was still, she knew, one Klingon up with nothing worse wrong with him than a case of sore eyeballs. "Julian, Kashi, look out, there's still--ugh!" She'd collided with a large armor-dressed individual who enveloped her in an unfriendly bear hug. "MMPH!" she attempted to scream. Jadzia stomped his instep, which, considering the fact that he had military boots on and she was wearing soft low slippers that matched her gown, did very little good. All in that same split second, Torias struggled for the gun at her waist, Emony twisted like an anaconda, Curzon tried to pull her other hand free with an eye toward delivering an old-fashioned right uppercut, Audred was frightened, Lela was outraged, Joran thought murderous thoughts, Tobin tried to estimate how much time until the power grid was back up-- The sparkling of a transporter effect started up. In its light, she had time to notice three things; it was Ishikawa who was in the beam, of course; the other three Klingons seemed to be out of the fight; and Julian looked damned odd. He was staring dropjawed at Ishikawa. She was staring back in equal astonishment. In the last instant before she dematerialized she looked back toward Ezri, mouthing her name, one hand outstretched. "Kashi--" Ezri took advantage of the guard's distraction to lever her body backward and then forward again in a hard head-butt--only she, of course, hit the Klingon in the solar plexus instead of the forehead. She very nearly knocked herself out on his breastplate, but it forced the wind out of him, and he dropped her. She fell to the floor, partly across one of the other Klingons, as Julian took the opportunity of the Klingon's discomfiture to dispatch him with his knife hand as the other was swinging some piece of equipment that had been strapped to his back around to where he could reach it. He tapped a pad and the device hummed to life--transporter enhancer, Ezri realized as he leaned down and scooped her up in one arm. "Hold on," he said perfunctorily. "We're getting out of here." --- I ground my teeth. I was riding the scanners so hard it wasn't difficult to imagine frothy sweat breaking from the console readouts. He was there, close to her current position, but into her immediate area four Klingon lifesigns had just moved, shortly after I'd transported him. Suddenly the huge ship went dark. As the tractor field dissipated, the ships it had been holding drifted free, keeping pace with the yacht's momentum--except the Paelan shipyard raider, whose running lights flashed active. I've been on pins and needles in my life, but this was about as bad as it had ever been. If he wasn't going to make it, I needed to get out of there--but I couldn't leave without them, despite the necessity of making sure I didn't fall into Alliance hands; I'd be as much a weapon against the Federation as Ezri. 'How long do I wait? What if--' The enhancer's signal activated. I leaped on the controls and spun my chair, running aft, toward the transporter. They materialized. Julian's bare torso and one arm were covered with purplish blood; the knife dripped in the hand belonging to the arm which held a nearly naked Ezri. His other hand held the enhancer. "Come on, let's get out of here--you two can do that later," he growled as Ezri stumbled toward me, looking back and forth between us. I took her hands and said "It's all right, it's me. That's my counterpart, this is his ship." "Oh," she said dazedly, then seemed to snap out of it. "But how did you--get--" "The ship's cloaked," I said quickly, "and I hope they couldn't trace the beam with the power down--your doing, I take it? But we need to get out of here with all speed--come on." She followed be back up toward the pilot cabin. As we entered, she was saying "We can't go yet--Kashi's ship may be functional, but it may not, and even if it is--" "Kashi?" I wondered. "The woman I was with--she's Keiko, in our universe." "She's Keiko in this one, too," Julie growled, engaging the engine startup. "And she's quite capable of taking care of herself--you saw the way she beamed out without you." "That was an accident. I was supposed to be near enough to--" "It was no accident. This isn't the first time she's taken that sort of everyone-for-herself exit." "You *know* her?" Ezri wondered. "I do indeed. Coming about--" "Wait! I'm telling you, it was an accident! We can't leave her here, if it weren't for her I couldn't have got away!" "We'd have taken you as easily from a cell." "From the Intendant's bedroom, more likely, but we didn't know you were coming. She didn't want to leave without me! I can tell!" "It doesn't mean a damn thing to her if you needed each other to make an escape attempt. She's demonstrated that fact to my satisfaction." "At least hail her ship." "And announce our presence to everyone in the--" "Their power grid's not up again yet!" "It's not the only ship in the area." "She'll never get out of here in that raider, the only chance she has is with us!" I cut in. "I'm hailing the ship." Julie glared at me. I controlled a wince at the ferocity of it and asserted "Ezri's a xenopsychologist. If she says this woman didn't intend to betray her, I think we can trust that determination." He said nothing, looking away. I had Ezri take my seat and worked controls; the comm screen flashed. If that was Keiko, I was Julie. "Where the hell are you?" this Keiko snapped without preamble. "Kashi, are you all right?" "Trying to get the damned engines warmed up before that grid comes back on line. Are *you* all right?" "I'm okay. We're in a cloaked ship, another raider like yours. You'd better come aboard while you still can." "I want to save my ship--the rebels need them and they don't grow on trees--" "Neither do chances like this! Forget the ship and let us beam you aboard!" I glanced at Julie. He looked a positive savage, shirtless, covered with purplish blood, hair wild, and those eyes...but he was silent, poised over his board like a taut bowstring. The alternate Keiko seemed to vacillate a moment, then said "All right. Hang on, let me grab a few things we might be able to use." "We don't have time!" "Thirty seconds, then activate the beam, right?" "Right. Dax out." "Ishikawa out." Ezri looked at Julie. "She did seem to know you. You both looked pretty surprised." "I'm impressed that you managed to pick up on that while hanging in the grasp of a two-meter Klingon warrior," he snapped. "Do you want to tell us about it?" "No." He went back to his board, plotting us a random course through and away from the Qo'noS system. I touched Ezri's shoulder; she looked up at me, and I shook my head slightly, once. She glanced back at Julie, then back up at me, and nodded. I beckoned to her and she followed me aft to the transporter. "That's your counterpart?" she said in amazement. "Is it any more startling than hearing about yours?" "I never *met* mine, I suppose is the big difference. Benjamin sent you?" "He wanted to come himself; I talked him out of it. Smiley owed me personally; I convinced the Captain to let me come on that basis." Once I had the transporter set up, using the coordinates Julie had fed back for the other raider, I turned and hugged her; she squeezed back gratefully. "You've got even more skin showing than Julie does," I noticed. "Gift from the Intendant?" "'Julie'?" she said pointedly. "It's what his Jadzia used to call him. She's the reason he's here. You have our Jadzia's memories...and he couldn't bear to leave even that little of her in the custody of the Alliance." "I'll have to thank him when I can think again. They were lovers?" "Not quite. In terms of the intensity of their feelings, yes, I suppose they were. Oops--we'll have to talk about it later." I turned to activate the transporter. She materialized. Keiko, in every detail, except for the distant, cool expression, the entirely different bearing, the hair--unbraided, I thought, that hair must nearly reach the floor--and great heavens, what an outfit. Keiko would faint in embarrassment at the thought of appearing in public tricked out like her husband all set to play Falcon. All that was missing were the eyepatch and the boots--hers were soft, glovelike, like the ones Julie was currently wearing, though this Keiko's boots rose to her knees. She stepped off the platform, setting down a carrysling and an equipment case. Then she got a good look at me and stopped. "This is *my* Julian," Ezri stepped in quickly with. "Doctor Julian Bashir. Julian, this--" "Ishikawa," the woman said, stepping forward to take my outstretched hand. "Kashi to my friends." She gave Ezri a half-smile, then looked back at me. "Here to retrieve Ezri, I guess?" "Exactly. Though I'm glad we were able to give you a ride as well." "Not as glad as I am, I can just about guarantee you." "Julian!" came a hoarse shout from the pilot cabin. "Get up here, their grid's back up!" --- SEVEN: "...I think it's *so* groovy now, that people are finally gettin' together, I think it's wonderful to know, that people are finally gettin' together..." Friend And Lover --- I bolted back to the front of the ship. "Are we silent? Were we in time?" "We can hope so. Unless there was some kind of fluke." "Let's get on course; then I'll have another look at that hand." "It's fine." "I'll be the judge of that." Ezri and Ishikawa had come in behind us, seating themselves in the auxiliary station chairs. I glanced back; Ezri had Ishikawa's jacket draped over her shoulders. "The Intendant's going to have some explaining to do," she murmured. Ishikawa snorted. "A lot of things about our plan bothered me. Leaving the Intendant in the lurch was not one of them. You're not worried about her, are you?" "She's a Federation," Julie graveled, not looking around. "She worries about everyone." "Not everyone," Ezri countered. "If there's anyone alive in any universe who can look out for herself, it's that woman. She'll probably convince the arch-General that you kidnapped me, Kashi." "Wouldn't be hard. He'd like to believe it." Silence ruled in the cabin as Julie and I got us set up on course and checked all the automatic scanner alarms. I made sure no one had detected us, then sat back in my chair and sighed. "Let me see that hand when you're through." He turned and held it out to me; I took it and glanced over it. "You disturbed some of the sutures." "You *don't* have to cut it open *again*, do you?" "No, I think I can make do with the vascular regenerator, at least until we get somewhere a little better equipped. You might still heal up fine. Any trouble moving these fingers?" "No." "You should be all right, then." I reached for the medkit. More silence as I worked on him. When I was through, he turned his chair to gaze narrowly at Ishikawa. She gazed back. Finally he said "Come on." He stood and proceeded aft; she wordlessly got up and followed him. "Do you know?" I mouthed at Ezri. She shook her head. They'd started out in slicing whispers we could catch only an occasional word of, things like "paid", "bastard", "how was I..." "never", "do you think", "supposed to", etc. Soon, though, their voices, still with that hissing, sibilant quality, had risen to the point that the words were fairly clear. Julie was saying "Well I'm so dreadfully sorry to disappoint you!" "Don't be like that, Jules. I thought you were dead." "How long did you wait to be sure?" "Until they were shutting the yard down!" "The explosions would have taken out the lockdowns." "I couldn't be sure that would happen before the yard *itself* was gone! And you *did* get away, obviously." "Only by chance. Remember Erret? He found me knocked out from the explosion in the main living quarters and dragged me aboard a transport he and three of the other staff were in the process of liberating. It was only being the *pet* that saved me; Erret knew that I'd have knowledge worth something." "And I bet you damn well did, too, if you're Julian Bashir you did all right. Jules, you were in the living quarters complex when the main charges went off and you didn't make our rendezvous--why's it so hard to believe that I'd think you hadn't got out in time?" "You never were known for your patience." "And you've never been known for being a slouch in the sheets. Which is no more your fault than my temper is mine." I winced. I was sure she'd just signed her own death warrant with that comment. Oddly, it seemed to have the opposite effect on him. "You never contacted me. I know all about what you do, Keiko; you fall into the category of 'provisional asset'," he said quietly. "But I'm to believe you never *realized* who *I* was?" "You changed your name." "Damned right I did, so did you. But *I* knew it was you. And I can't count the times I've had to grit my teeth while we discussed one of your latest data drops at length--" "Hey, perceptivity is one of your talents, isn't it? I never *saw* you. Besides, who could imagine the vicious bastard everyone described--the man who blew up an entire Andorian prison ship because three of the prisoners were, according to intelligence, Alliance spies--could be His Excellency's Jules El Amsha?" There was a long silence. Then he replied "I did that for Erret's sake. He would have wanted me to. So would those other prisoners. You know how Andorians are about that sort of thing." "'Would have'? I guess Erret didn't make it?" "He was shot carrying me to the transport. He reached it, but..." "I see." Ezri and I were sending each other urgent priority messages with our eyes, but we were both too distracted to be able to decipher them. "We'd better stay the hell out of it," was about as much as we managed to communicate. Not that I wasn't perishing of curiosity. Julie growled slowly "'A shameless person is sometimes called brave by a twist of speech, because he looks something like a brave one; for a brave one too is fearless.'" Ezri looked at me. "Aristotle," I whispered, shrugging. Kashi said, in a threateningly soft, deep tone, "Oh, no. Not that. I'm not going to help you call me a faithless coward." We heard her moving. They came back in. Julie slumped to the pilot's chair; Ishikawa stopped in the doorway. "I grabbed some things from my ship that might fit you, Ezri. Want to get out of that ventilated handkerchief?" Ezri stood and accompanied Ishikawa without comment. I looked at Julie. He glanced back at me, chuckled darkly, and looked away again. "I should let you suffer." "Up to you." "You know what I used to be." "Yes." "Keiko used to be his bodyguard. She was in the same group of 'investments' as I was, sold to the same specialist. We were together with the rest of the group for years, and then came my purchase...but he'd left instructions about her when his representative first contacted the investor. I was something of an impulse purchase, for reasons you can probably sympathize with." He gave me an evil grin; I managed to look only slightly abashed. He continued "After her enhancements, even after her training--we're close to the same age--she had to finish growing, but they were apparently able to boost that to some degree. In a couple of years she was as big as she is now. Fighting, security, defensive strategies in all their many and various forms, is the direction her enhancements took." I stared. "But she's so small. What possessed your, um, your investor to have her enhanced as a fighter?" "I just *told* you. She was a special order. Our purchaser had thought it would be amusing to have a diminutive human as a bodyguard--rather a slap in the face to anyone who might make a try for him. Besides, he had regular guards enough. She had specialized duties, and authority with the house guard. She accompanied him at formal functions, that sort of thing. I did too, sometimes," he added, with an almost thoughtful expression. "Who *was* this man?" "The First Minister of Bajor." I stared. "The..." "Well, the one current then. He's since had a bit of a turn for the demised." Julie smirked. "You...escaped in some kind of attack?" "We escaped after she and I planted explosive charges all over the compound; I handled the most private wings. I had nearly free run of the place--I was a *very* good little boy," he asided sourly, "as far as he knew. We also had some of the other house staff in on it. She was able to get hold of the explosive because of her position with the house guard." "Why did she need you?" "To plant the charges I mentioned, and also I had access to a number of things that would have made our lives much easier if I'd been able to get to them, and things that'd ensure us a place with the Terran resistance. But I ran out of time; I didn't get far enough from the blast zone before everything went off. If one of the other servants hadn't carried me to a transport, I wouldn't have made it out." "And you two were supposed to meet..." "She had clearance to take out armed escort ships without previous authorization--those were under *her* authorization. That's how we were going to escape. And she did--without me." "You don't think she did it on purpose, do you?" "Why shouldn't she have?" he snapped. "I was nothing to her." "What makes you say that? You'd known each other for years beforehand. You were probably the closest thing either of you had to family." He just stared at me a moment, then began to chuckle. Pretty soon, he was laughing full throat. "You damn fool *Federation*!" he gasped. "You don't know *anything*!" "I'll admit I've got no firsthand experience with slavery," I remarked acidly, more than slightly irked. He stopped laughing, all at once, and his eyes flashed up at me. I felt burned again. We stared at each other a moment before he snarled "I'll skip the greater portion of the lecture and just assume that it hasn't occurred to you that the First Minister's pretty dolled-up little piece of--that I was not the most popular creature with the other servants. With anyone, for that matter. Even his associates. They resented the favor he showed me; they didn't like my being party to as much as I was. I wasn't a freed, privileged Terran; I was definitely a slave, but he treated me--according to what they could see--like a...like I mattered, he put me on a level with them. All right, not quite, but still too close to suit them. Even the ones who felt sorry for me were contemptuous--I was a...a lapdog." His voice became quiet and tight, and he looked away from me again. "Petted, or ignored, according to his whim, very conscious of the fact that he could shower me with gifts or destroy me with impunity at any moment. And as I said, you can imagine what the other servants, especially the other Terrans, thought of me." "Were they any fonder of Keiko?" "They respected her. They didn't like her noticeably better, she had authority to punish, and although she seldom used it, simply that she had the power made them resent her. Plus it was her job to protect *him*." "Perhaps she did feel kinship with you, then. After all, since what was done to you, neither of you had any real choice in being who you are." "Are you really so innocent you believe *that* would have mattered to *any*one?" I was quiet for a time. "No," I murmured finally. "I don't suppose it did, under those circumstances. So, you think she simply used you." Now he was silent. Finally he said quietly "I don't know." "Slave or not, Julie, I think you must have trusted her to some degree. You hadn't anyone else to trust. For her to have left you...even if it *were* a mistake--" "I don't *know*. Leave it, will you?" I was astonished to surprise tears standing in his eyes. His voice cracked, but he simply firmed his jaw and ignored the moisture as it dripped down his face. As I said, I do learn, on occasion, from experience. I longed to touch him, but I didn't. "It's left," I said neutrally. --- "Could you...?" Ezri paused with her arms over her head, imprisoned by the shirt. She felt Kashi's hands seize the hem of the garment and yank. Her head popped through the neck as the straps slid over her arms and came to rest on her shoulders. "This covers more skin, but it doesn't hide much more than the dress." "I never know when I might need to be able to move. Breathes okay now that it's on, doesn't it?" Ezri swung her arms experimentally. "Yes, I guess it does." She turned and sat on the lower bunk, shifting around to find the best way to sit in the pants without getting cut. It wasn't hard; they were black, but not leather, and they stretched to accommodate. "So you were--Julian's--Jules's owner's bodyguard?" "That's right." "Were you two close?" "You don't get close when you're a slave." Ezri frowned. "But you were..." "A privileged slave; so was he. Special abilities, special positions. But we were still slaves. You aren't *ever* secure, no matter how solid your position seems. You can't afford to care about people. You aren't stupid, you can see that." "I suppose I can." "What did you say you were, back on the yacht--a Zen something?" "Xenopsychologist." "I'd have sworn you were an engineer, or a combat officer. You stayed cool." "Several of my past hosts have been in combat. I have once or twice, too. And I told you about Tobin and Jadzia." "All those lives..." Kashi sat next to her on the bunk; there wasn't a lot of room. Ezri started to scoot over, but Kashi put an arm around her shoulders. "Doesn't it get confusing?" "Oh, definitely. I wasn't even in line to be joined, it was an accident, the symbiont was on its way to Trill to be rejoined and took a turn for the worse and I was the only Trill available who was capable of hosting--do you care about any of this?" Kashi smiled slightly. "If it makes you feel better, I do. I did ask." Ezri eyed her. "I get the feeling you didn't ask because you want to know." Kashi smirked, then let the expression fall, and touched Ezri's cheekbone with a fingertip. Ezri met the warm pressure of her kiss willingly enough, but made herself pull back after only a moment. "Don't feel like celebrating our escape?" Kashi whispered. "I can't, Kashi. Really. It's...against what we believe, in a situation like this. And...you're so much like my Keiko." A line briefly creased Kashi's forehead at the name, but vanished almost at once. "It's up to you, of course. You...impressed me. Managing what you did, being who you are. Let me know if you change your mind." "I will. But really...all my hosts managed it, not just me." Kashi looked quizzically at her. "It's hard to explain. It's sort of the reason Julian--good night, and I thought having eight previous hosts was confusing. The reason *your* Julian is here. He knew this universe's Jadzia, and I carry her memories. Sort of. I have *our* universe's Jadzia's memories." "They must've been close." "That's what my Julian said." Kashi considered. "I'm glad to hear he had a good friend. Even for a while." She hadn't removed her arm from Ezri's shoulders, and her opposite hand was resting on Ezri's knee. Ezri wasn't having a problem with it. After what she'd just been through, such unthreatening attention was really rather comforting. "You at least have some good feelings about him, then, even if you weren't really friends." "I can't really help it; I knew him for years, since I was a child, like I said. He was...I remember him as being a sweet kid, though at the time I wouldn't have noticed. He had more trouble following what happened than the rest of us did. I tried to look out for him as much as I could, keep him out of trouble, a few of us did; at first, we had an all-in-this-together sort of feeling. We weren't old enough, or experienced enough, to realize it was a liability to get too fond of each other. Then Leveren bought me. I didn't even know about it for quite a while. Some years later when he came to the compound to check on my progress, they sent Jules to him. Next thing I heard, Leveren was going to be taking him away with him; I didn't see him again until I went to Bajor myself. By the time we met up again, we were thirteen, and Leveren had had him for two years." "Were you upset when he left?" "I tried to tell myself I wasn't, but I was. Several of us were, he was the first to go out of our group. And when I saw him again, he just...looked at me, with this sort of non-expression. He was civil enough. But he was cold...and I think he knew that I felt bad for him. He doesn't like that sort of thing. And when I touched him..." she paused, then shook her head. "Were you attracted to him? He was the only one in your life you really knew, at the time." "Not the way you mean, men have never done much for me that way. I think...I did want him to warm up to me. Maybe that's part of the reason I enlisted him to help in the escape instead of someone else. There were several reasons for that, of course, but...maybe I hoped he'd be grateful. That he'd like me for taking him with me instead of letting him get killed along with Leveren. That it would show him that I cared about *him*, or at least I wanted to be able to." "It must have hurt very much to leave him," Ezri whispered. "I try not to think about it," Kashi nodded, gazing at the floor. "But yeah. I guess it did. We're the same age, but it always seemed I was older than he was. I wanted to be able to take care of him, though I knew that was impossible. Funny, I remember now how much it hurt, thinking he was dead, leaving without him...but at the time, I wasn't aware of feeling anything, except scared." "It was a long time ago. Your repressed feelings have had time to surface. You can bear to face them now; you couldn't then." "I suppose." Kashi looked up at Ezri again. "You're going to be talking with him." "I at least have to say thank you, and I think I owe him a little more than that. If there's anything I can do for him--it's not as though he's going to have the opportunity to talk with another counselor any time soon. Rebels--and the majority of Terrans, in this universe--don't have much access to that kind of thing." "We don't have many doctors available to us, either. You said your Julian is one?" "Yes. Do you need to see him about something?" "Maybe. I'll think about it." "Do you think you'll be talking with your Julian much?" "I think it's too late. I wish it wasn't, but I think it is." "Ezri?" Ezri's Julian. "Bunk cabin," Ezri called. He came in with the medkit. "I'd like to give both of you a look over, make sure you're all right. Only be a moment." Kashi kissed Ezri's cheek and stood up, letting her go. "I'm going to talk to Jules for a minute. I'm not sure where I'm going to end up, after this." She left the cabin. Julian looked after her a moment. "That seems like quite a tangle." "Did he tell you about it?" "Yes, he did. Can you imagine? Keiko as a bodyguard?" "After having seen this Keiko in action, yes, I can." --- Kashi peered around the corner of the pilot cabin; it was empty. She went in and sat in the copilot's chair and gazed out at the stars without seeing them. Julie was back in just a moment; he was damp, devoid of Klingon blood, dressed in fresh clothes. He paused barely a microsecond on seeing her, then continued up to sit in the pilot's chair. They were both silent for a minute or two. Finally she said "We could have been better to each other, couldn't we?" "Especially toward the end," he agreed, neutral-voiced but obviously pointed. "You never did forgive me," she sighed in realization. "Did you honestly expect me to? You *left* me." "I didn't want to. It *hurt* to leave you, Jules. I've never forgiven me, either, really, even though I know--" "If you don't want to be hurt again, stop calling me that." "Sorry. I'm Ishikawa." "I know *your* name." "That's right, I forgot. Listen, I should have said this to you about twenty years ago when it would have done us some good, I know. I wanted a friend, I wanted to be *your* friend. With my position, I could have made things easier for you when we were with Leveren, and you could have made them easier for me, but neither of us tried. All right, we escaped, it's over. Maybe there's no fixing it now; I understand the concept of 'too late'. But I could have loved you. I was only afraid, just like you, Julian." "Not just like me," he muttered tightly. "Not just like me at *all*. You had power. Your position gave it to you, your enhancements gave it to you, your training gave it to you. All mine gave me was--" he stopped, his eyes closing suddenly. "I was still a slave," she whispered. "I was still at his mercy." "He had no interest in *having* you at his mercy," Julie hissed, eyes still closed. "Not like me. At all." There was quiet again for a moment; Julie opened his eyes and muttered "'God forbid that I should justify you. 'Til I die, I will not remove mine integrity from me.'" He ploddingly continued what he'd been doing. "Okay," Kashi whispered. "Good one, Jules. Clear enough. I said my bit, I'm done. And that's all." She got up and went aft, toward the bedcabin and in, where Ezri was just sitting back up on the bunk. "My turn now?" Kashi asked. "Have a seat." Julian indicated the bunk as Ezri got up. "He's in the pilot cabin," Kashi sighed to Ezri. "You might want to look in on him. Neither of us enjoyed our chat much." Ezri nodded and headed for the pilot cabin. Once there, she stopped in the doorway; Jules--no, Julian had called him Julie--was sitting very still, slumped in the pilot's chair with one hand over his eyes, the other resting on the copilot's chair. 'Stars,' Ezri thought. "Meeting up with his counterpart, with Kashi...me...he's got to be in an awful way.' For a moment, she wasn't sure speaking to him now would be a help or only add to the trauma. But she couldn't stand it. Her instincts won out; she went into the cabin and ran her hand across his shoulders. "Julie? Are you all right?" His head snapped up and he stared at her, and she realized who'd just spoken. 'Jadzia, you can back *off* now,' she thought in exasperation. But then, maybe closure was what he needed. Maybe Jadzia could still help. Dax stroked Julie's hair, sinking to a crouch next to his chair and taking his hand. "Tell me about it. Haven't I always been your favorite crying towel?" she asked conspiratorially, with a slow smile that made her blue eyes sparkle. He gazed at her unbelieving a moment, as the tears started down; then his face crumpled and he collapsed into her arms. --- "Do you hear that?" Julian's head came up. "Hear wha...oh." He sighed quietly. "Yes. I hear it." "It's really tearing me up. I didn't think...I didn't think there was any way I could still care this much." "And he rather obviously still cares a great deal, too, or he'd have forgiven you by now. Listening to that is breaking my heart as well, but it may be the best thing for him. Suddenly being confronted with all three of us--if he doesn't vent the pressure some way, he'd likely wind up killing a couple of us. Or me, at least." They were quiet a while as Julian ran scanners over her. Then she said "You've got your Ezri. I suppose you'll be transporting back home now?" "Not...quite yet..." Julian picked up a different scanner. "Julie and I have some things to discuss. And I think he deserves a little time with Ezri, after what he's done for us." "That's what she said, too. She's your friend?" "Yes, she is. Jadzia was, too." "You're lucky." "Oh, it's not like that..." "I didn't mean it was. I still think you're lucky. She's...got a lot of pluck." Julian grinned. "So did Jadzia. Though in her case I wouldn't call it pluck. More like...well. She was extremely difficult to frighten. And even when she was frightened, she'd joke. She was always joking. Sometimes a little past the point of good taste." "You were close?" "I loved her." "I guess some things don't change from universe to universe." "Some things do. On my side you're married to...to my best friend, and you have two children." "You jest." "No." Kashi laughed faintly. "Well, give her my congratulations next time you see her." --- Ezri and Kashi were in the bunk cabin, resting, at my insistence. I'd tried to get Julie back there as well--Kashi and Ezri would fit in one bunk with no problem--but had met with the expected level of resistance. Tired as hell myself, I didn't have the energy to argue. "How are you holding up?" "I'd be better if people would stop being so bloody curious about how I am." "We care about you, Julie." He didn't answer. "If you were telling me the truth earlier," I continued softly, trying to get comfortable in the seat--I thought I might catch a nap in it--"the three people on board this ship with you care more about you than anyone. Two of us are eventually going to have to leave; one of them isn't, though." "If you dare try to push her on me..." "I'm not pushing anything, but it's a fact. Julie, certainly you'd have felt betrayed at first, but it was what, eighteen years ago. You've had plenty of time to see that what she says happened is the truth. You wouldn't be so full of pain over it if her leaving without you hadn't shocked you past what--" "Julian. I'm tired. I'm not dead." It was a threat. I heeded it. Finally I said "Why don't you try to get some rest. I'll keep an eye on things." He didn't reply; his reddened, slightly swollen eyes were glassy, lids drooping. When they closed, I took a quick look at his hand; satisfied, I let him be. --- "Coming up on Terok Nor," Julie said a couple of days later. A collective telepathic sigh of relief echoed between me, Kashi and Ezri. After his tension-breaking crying spell, Julie, who is not the sort to handle the aftermath of that kind of thing gracefully, went into a thunderous silence the rest of us were loath to disturb, so that we talked, when we talked, mostly outside his presence. None of us really knew what to say, what would happen now, anyway, and Ezri and I weren't sure how angry either of the other two would get at any mention of the circumstances, though Kashi, for all her assertions of a bad temper, seemed more sad than anything else. Even Julie didn't snarl much. He seemed to be keeping so intensely focused he was barely aware of us, which was doubtless his intention. "This should be interesting," Ezri muttered. "Your counterpart isn't there now," Julie said. "She's at a refugee relay in the badlands. Unless she's back for a supply run or something." "The Defiant's in dock," I noted, puzzled. "Let me...yes, they've taken some damage. We're still working on establishing exactly what we can and can't do and remain undetectable with the cloak." I looked at him. "You mean you didn't know what *we* could do and not do, in the middle of the Qo'noS system?" He gave me a lopsided smile. "I do have *some* idea...but frankly, I expected to be warping out of there with fifty escort ships on our trail." "Now you tell me." "Would it have made any difference?" "Oh, I suppose not. I'm hailing the station." We got docking clearance and entered the station on what would have been runabout pad C on DS9. A couple of engineers met us; Julie went to speak to them as Keiko glanced around. "Didn't expect to see the inside of this place again." "I suppose we'd better speak with Captain Smiley first thing," I said. "We'll need to wait for Julie--oh. Hello, Captain." Smiley was emerging from the lock. He saw Keiko and paused. "I hitched a ride," Ishikawa said. "But I'm afraid I'm not going to be in a position to get you any more inside information; I narrowly avoided being a permanent guest of the arch-General. Got room for a crack pilot and not-bad infighter?" He considered her a moment, then held out his hand. "Welcome aboard, Ishikawa." Ezri and I were controlling our reaction to the sight of Miles and Keiko sniffing around each other with about as much warmth and trust as a couple of stray dogs. We exchanged a look; she patted my shoulder. "Not them," she said. "Just keep telling yourself that." "Mm." "You're Ezri Dax?" Miles was saying. Ezri nodded and went to shake his hand. "Thanks for your help. Another day and the Intendant and I would have been picking out a china pattern." "'Scuse me?" "Sorry, old Terran saying." "Well, I'm glad you made it back all right. My clerical aide Leeta's in my office; she'll be debriefing you on the trip." "Happy to cooperate, but I don't think Julian or I know much that isn't in the navicomp's log," I said. "Ezri and Ishikawa may know more of value to you." "Never can tell. Where's--there he is. God above, he looks like hell. What happened to him?" "What didn't?" I sighed. "He was bitten by a vole. It's been keeping him awake." Julie joined us and we proceeded toward Ops. --- EIGHT: "Do you need a friend? Would you tell no lies? Let me take you in--are you lonely in the dark?" Billy Squier --- I woke up and saw him sitting across from the couch I was lying on, staring into space. The chair was some brocaded monstrosity that had undoubtedly begun its career in a Gul's quarters. The whole station was furnished like that, a mixture of the gaudy, the semi-tasteful and the stark. Julian had his own quarters--in floor plan, the equivalent of mine on my station--because of who he was, but in most cases even singles were housing three and four people, and the larger quarters were packed to the walls with inhabitants. The rebellion was picking up momentum, and members, more quickly than it was able to keep up in terms of resources, and the station was technically harboring more sentients than it had been designed to support. The available furnishings, along with everything else, were moved around willy-nilly to wherever they happened to be needed worst. Terok Nor being the nerve center of the organization, the overflow people of other bases and strongholds tended to wind up here. Julie's quarters were furnished in Cardassian and Klingon, mostly Cardassian, with a smattering of products from subjugated worlds--there was a Terran Impressionist painting of a beach on the wall. I hadn't seen one item I could definitely identify as being of Bajoran manufacture since I walked into the place. "Did you just come in?" I asked, sitting up. I'd been catching a nap, after spending seemingly endless hours in the infirmary--I felt like an intern again--doing everything there was material to do for anyone who needed it. It was true this was technically against Federation policy--not against the Prime Directive, the rebels were hardly a pre-warp civilization--but we were definitely skirting the edges of what was allowed. Ezri was doing what she could, too, when she wasn't with Julie. For one thing, she made a passable OR technician and had been helping me. Julie, I knew, had just been visiting Ezri, who had been offered a bed by Leeta. Kashi was with them, too. Exactly who was sleeping where and for what reason was no business of mine, of course. He looked at me, only his eyes moving, then away again. He said, very quietly, "She's not Jadzia, is she?" "You knew she wasn't." "Yes--but I *knew*. Now I believe." "I understand. Has it...has she been any help?" "Oh, yes." Suddenly he shook his head. "No. I don't know, she--" he stood up and took a few of those leggy catlike strides toward the port. "She has. I feel like...I can tell her the things I wanted to tell Jadzia, after I lost her. And she does *know*, she knows Jadzia, she knows what she'd say, what she'd think." He paused. "Am I nothing but a damn fool for having wanted to have her back? Having thought even for a second that I could?" "If you are, I am too," I told him truthfully. "I'll never stop wanting her back." "But as much as she's helped--helped me see a great many things; not only about Jadzia--you know what happens to me when I..." "You don't want to feel again," I said gently. "I know that. You've never been anything but disappointed and hurt." His mouth quirked. "Thanks. Makes me sound like a rotting crybaby." "Julie, don't be silly. We're talking a magnitude of harm--in this universe, and in my own, it may be more common than where I'm from specifically...but that doesn't matter. You're reacting the way any human would to it." "You think of us as human?" He turned to face me, with a gesture that indicated himself and me, then leaned against the port and folded his arms, bathed in starlight in the dimness. "I admit I didn't used to, but I do now." "You, maybe. Not me." "Why?" "You're still you. Who you were. Of me, there's little left." "It's there. It's only buried, for your survival's sake. You know that." I didn't finish out loud the rest of the metaphor that struck me; there'd been no blood flowing to large parts of him for far too long. When feeling returned... "What if it's not?" He moved, came over to where I was sitting, standing over me. "What if your valiant faith is misplaced, Doctor? What if I'm nothing but the ruthless would-be despot I appear to be?" "A ruthless would-be despot didn't kiss me like you did. And I don't mean the demonstration. There was nothing ruthless about the way you held on to me." "Maybe I was using you." "You weren't." "You're infuriating," he noted calmly. "That seems to be the general consensus," I agreed, smiling slightly. "But you're not going to intimidate me into giving up." I stood up. "You can't intimidate me, Julie. Impress the hell out of me, yes. Intimidate, no." "Oh really now? *I* impress *you*? The semiliterate ex-whore impresses the genetically enhanced surgeon?" "Stop it. You were a slave, not a whore." "What's the difference?" "You had no choice." "You think whores do?" "Julie." I gently grasped his shoulders in a calming gesture, then let my hands slide down his arms to take his hands. "You impress me because without the enhancements I had, nearly all of which you didn't, I would never have managed to become as functional and self-reliant as you are." "Yet for some odd reason you seem determined to sabotage that functionality and self-reliance." "You know that isn't what I want." "You don't *want* to understand that it's what you'll get, if you keep on at me as you've been. Can none of you Federations understand that everything can't always be the way you want it? Are you so used to having your own way?" I sighed, squeezing his hands. "Perhaps. I'm not going to defend my society to you, it's irrelevant in any case. What matters is you." "And you," he added. "Isn't *that* so?" "Me?" "You just can't bear going off and leaving me in this *pathetic* state, can you? Couldn't live with yourself. You're as much an issue here as I am. And I'll be the one who has to live with what comes of your--" "Julie, damn it, *stop* working yourself into a prideful self-righteous snit whenever we talk about this!" He was quiet a moment, then he chuckled low in his chest. "I can't believe that *I'm* going to have to explain this to *you*. Don't you remember? In that little moment of intense honesty between us in the raider corridor?" "I remember everything about that moment. What are you referring to specifically?" "When I said 'And you'll go, too.'" He was quiet then, holding my hands, waiting while I turned it over in my head. "You mean you...don't want me to?" "Just now, you could, and it wouldn't do more than distract me for a few days. But think about what would happen. Say I let you be my shepherd, rod and staff and all. You blow your trumpet and tear down the walls, and restoreth my soul." I blinked, stunned at hearing him quote the Bible of all things, even in such a disjointed fashion. *My* parents hadn't been Christian; I couldn't imagine where he'd have come by it. He was continuing. "So, what do you think will happen then? When I've bared my soul to you and you've soothed me, supported me, guided and cared for me? How do you think I'll feel about *you*, once you've done all that to coax me *into* feeling again?" His grip on my hands was becoming painful; I didn't move. I tried to meet his eyes in the darkness; when I did, I knew what he meant. "I could love you *now*," he whispered ferally. "I'm not sure why. Maybe you're a fantasy of a better life and I want to drown myself in it. I despise myself for feeling this, but I do. And after you do everything you want to do with me--you think there's any way I could keep from it? And then, of course, you'd be gone. I'm not going to lose another person I love, Julian. I couldn't bear that again. So perhaps you'd best rethink your whole strategy." "It can't be that simple." "You find that *simple*?" "We can talk to Ezri. She'll help, and you won't--" He let go of my hands and grabbed me, pulling me close, hard, kissing me with such intensity it was a moment before I realized he wasn't making any use of his enhancements, or none I could definitely detect. I steadied myself, putting my arms around him, and kissed him back; it spiraled and I let it, wanting it to, and I was caught up in it, moaning, running my hands over his back, letting his hair fall through my fingers... He was shaking when he pulled his mouth from mine, still so close our lips brushed when he spoke. "Don't you see now?" he demanded in a feline hiss. "Don't you *see*? So easy. It would be so easy...there's nothing she could do against this. There's nothing any of us could do. Get it through your head." He released me so suddenly we both stumbled; I sat down hard on the couch again. He turned and vanished into the bedroom. Love me. I knew...there was always, of course, the probability that he'd become attached to me, it's a very common phenomenon in such situations. Gratitude, even a crush, even his being distraught at my leaving...but it never occurred to me I might be all that difficult for him to get over. It had never occurred to me to see what I wanted to do as making him love me, and then abandoning him. God, was he right? Was it impossible? And I was still shaking, aroused, and incredibly aware of him in the other room. When he said "so easy", he was referring to both of us. I didn't think he believed I could love him, but he knew all about how to tell when someone wanted him, and he knew I did. I touched my comm badge. "Bashir to Dax. Your Julian, Ezri. I think I need to speak to you about the talk you and Julie just had." --- "Julian, with one exception to his case, he's the closest thing to an actual asexual human I've ever met." "Asexual? What on earth do you mean?" She handed me a mug of something bitter that she took from the large pot suspended over a burner in the cafeteria-style room off the Promenade; I thought it might be their equivalent of a replimat, but I was too distracted to ask. "I mean," she said, sitting down across from me--she was in the tight black clothes Kashi had given her again--"that when people undergo sexual trauma, one of the ways they cope sometimes is--" "--dissociating from all sexual feeling, sometimes through suppression and sometimes through the formation of an alternate personality whose job it is to deal with that department, I know, but terribly ill is still a long way from being truly asexual. That's almost impossible for humans." "Almost. But in any case, it's quite possible for it to be true in a practical sense. Many famous historical figures--" "I'd love to hear all about them some other time." "Julian, take a sip of that and try to calm down. You're going to need your feet under you for this." I sipped. "All right, I'm listening." "I'm talking about things like the fact that while he was with me in Leeta's living room, she walked out of the bedroom in nothing but a pair of lacy shorts. Not only did he not notice her, except to hand her the padd she asked him for, it was quite obvious she didn't expect him to notice. Despite his little subterfuge with Jadzia, *some* people--like Smiley and his immediate staff, such as Leeta--know perfectly well that he simply does not resonate on that frequency. That speaks of a very long and very consistent pattern of behavior." I finished blinking at the mental picture her story inspired and cleared my throat. "All right, I see your point. Is that what you said I'd need my feet under me for?" "When he's with me, there's no sexual undertone, either; and it's blatantly obvious he felt none with Jadzia. He knew something wasn't right, he knew he wanted to be closer to her in a way he couldn't, and he assumed that was it--it was an instinctive knowledge; he knew that the way he is isn't the way things ought to be, and he didn't...he'd rather have been born with no endocrine system at all. Jadzia knew that; she knew he wasn't ready to deal with that situation, that her relationship with him would never have that as a component. So she didn't try." "Ezri, there's something you don't know, unless he's told you--he has touched me, has kissed me, and not only with the aim of showing me what his enhancements are. And I would bet my very life that he felt as much as I did, even if he didn't know how to express it, even if it's unfamiliar to him--it was there. I could *feel* it." "I know." "You just said--" "Let me finish. To all my observations, he showed as much sexual reaction to people, memories, topics, as a boiled egg. Except when it came to one topic." "What top...oh." "Oh. I couldn't bring you up without his eyes dilating, his breath speeding up, his posture changing completely, the list goes on. He wasn't ready to respond to Jadzia, the only person in his life he didn't have to be afraid of. And I'm pretty much the memory of Jadzia to him, he's not afraid of me, but he doesn't have those feelings for me, either. But he's also not afraid of you. And he *is* ready now, to make some sort of beginning, some sort of attempt, at least. He can feel, if he'll let himself. He doesn't want to, on one hand; the reflex, the learned aversion, fears. On the other, he wants it more than anything in the quadrant." "Oh, my God." She reached across the table and patted my hand, sipping from her mug. "I--" I cleared my throat again. "No wonder he was so angry with me." "He wasn't lying when he said he could love you. He halfway already does, Julian. You're unbelievably unique to him. The combination of the factors of who you are to him--" "I get the idea," I managed to say. "Ezri, I think I might feel the same about him. Oh, not precisely the same, we're coming at this from such entirely different directions. He kissed me again a few moments ago, after the conversation I just told you about. He wasn't using his enhancements and I still..." "Can you bend at the waist yet?" "I'm going to have to readjust these blasted trousers *again* or I'll turn purple." She sighed, looking away. "This is not a good thing, you know." "If Captain Sisko had seen us a few minutes ago he'd have sent a squad of commandos over here to retrieve me." "Precisely my point. When you touch him, is that how he always reacts?" "Not so far, no. I've had to touch him quite extensively to deal with that vole bite, and he didn't care for *that* much, needless to say." "That's not what I mean. When Jadzia touched him, he could let himself feel it. It wasn't sexual, but it was still pleasant, comforting. When other people do, it just slides off, he's immune to feeling it. I don't really see how he could feel the things he does about you, and not be at least able to register sensation and experience response when you do it." "But he doesn't have to let himself." "No." "I know he's felt it a couple of times now." "I'm sure he has." I sighed and knocked back the rest of the whatever-it-was in the cup. "What are you going to do?" she wondered as I got up. "I'm going to go out to the docking ring and walk a few complete circuits of it. Otherwise I'll never get back to sleep." "Julian!" She stood up, calling after me. I stopped and stood there a moment, people moving around me, and finally called back "I need to think. I'll talk to you in the morning." "You've been here nearly two weeks, Julian." "I know that." "Just keep it in mind." I kept walking. --- About four hours later, I was at Leeta's door. Her voice came over the comm speaker. "Who is it?" "It's Julian. Dax's Julian. I'm sorry to bother you at this hour, Leeta, but it's urgent." The door swished open. Leeta was standing there in a bathrobe I'd given her for Peldor. I blinked, let it drop and said "I need to talk to Ezri." "She's in there," Leeta said with a sleepy smile, gesturing toward the bedroom, and started back for a pile of blankets spread over several large cushions on the floor. Out of the jumble peeked Kashi's face. "Hi. Something wrong?" "I just need to talk to Ezri." I scuttled into the bedroom. As far as I could tell they'd been sleeping, but still... Ezri sat up on the Cardassian bed as I ducked in. "What's up?" "Please don't explode." She blinked at me, then made a quick examination of her person. "Am I wired?" "You might be after I tell you this." I sat down on the foot of the bed. "You're going to have to go back without me." She stared. "I'm only staying for a while," I hastened to add. "Just a while. You know I couldn't stay here permanently, it's against Federation policy. They'd come get me, even if I'd ever *want* to stay here for the rest of my life." "They're gonna come get you anyway, Julian! We're already going to have a lot of fast talking to do to explain why we were here so long, without lying outright to Benjamin, which I have sort of a problem with, you should know." "You won't need to. The truth will do." "We're making a definite impact on their affairs over here, he's already going to be upset. He thinks he can trust us farther than this." "He persuaded professor Sisko to the rebel cause, and then helped them build the Defiant himself." "They were holding his son!" "I still believe he'll grant us a bit of leeway, especially since I know he'd rather have you back than me." "He's very fond of you, Julian, you know that." "But you were an Alliance captive and I'm only--" "--messing around in the affairs of the mirror universe." "Listen to me, Ezri. I can't leave Julie like this. Did you really think I could?" She sighed. "I'd hoped you could." She looked up at me again. "No matter how long you stay with him, Julian, it's not going to be long enough. And the longer you stay, the harder it'll be to leave." "We don't even know what's going to happen for certain yet, Ezri!" "*I* know! It's my *job*, Julian! For all practical purposes, you are that man's first love. Jadzia came close, but there were still components of a mature love affair missing. This time, there won't be. You can give him what he's never had. He's going to fall for you like an iceberg falls into the ocean, and you are gonna fall for him. I guarantee it." I was quiet a moment, then said softly "You know yourself that it's too late to stop that now." "But not too late to keep from making it worse." "Could you live with yourself? He could have been *me*, Ezri, I'm only lucky he wasn't!" "Have you thought how this is going to hurt him?" "Not nearly as much as abandoning him after all my fine words to him, after what he's let me see of him--after he's trusted me. If I betray that he may never trust anyone again." "Not *no* one, necessarily. There is the woman out there curled up with Leeta." "And comfy they looked, too, but I don't see what Kashi has to do with what's between Julie and me." "Nothing really, but she could have a lot to do with Julie himself. I'd been planning on seeing if I could work a few things out between them." "I can work on that." "I'm sure you can, but...look, how long are you thinking you'd stay here? Your current estimate, I mean. I expect it to get revised upward about a half dozen times." I rolled my eyes. "I don't know. I might not be long at all. It *might* be that he just won't need that much from me. I may play more the role of a therapist than...than whatever it is you're expecting exactly." "We're both expecting it." "All right, but nothing's certain yet, that's my point." She sighed and slumped. "I can talk myself blue in the face and I won't change your mind, will I, Doctor Adventure, Selfless Defender of the Weak?" "Now you're just being petty." "I won't lie to Benjamin, Julian." "You won't need to. Tell him that...that Julie was injured helping to retrieve you, that the rebels don't have what it takes to make sure he recovers completely. Which is true, I'd even considered--wait. That's it." "What's it?" "I won't need to stay here with him--if I can convince him to come with us." She stared again. "There's no regulation about Mirror people 'interfering' in Federation spacetime. We're quite sure we can handle anything they might have to introduce in *our* milieu." "He'll never do it," she blurted. "He's completely dedicated to the Terran rebellion, I can tell you that on no uncertain terms. They need him and he knows it." "He needs that hand fully functional, too. I won't try to convince him to come for long. I'll ask him to come with us so that I can look after it, and perhaps stay a little while so we can...talk about things. And you have to admit, the atmosphere here is far more conducive to losing one's head and operating on instinct than it is on DS9." She sighed. "If we say he got hurt helping rescue me and you want to fix him up, I'm sure Benjamin will allow that. But as far as coming up with some reason for Julie to stay past the one visit to the infirmary which would be enough to do the job, you're on your own." "Accepted. Would you, though, be willing to talk to Julie? He may need you. I know I will." "Yes, he likely will. All right, unless Benjamin orders me not to." "Thank you, Ezri." I scooted up the mattress--if you can call it a mattress--and hugged her, and you can definitely call it *that*, she made a small noise of respiratory distress and I lightened my squeeze. "Sorry." "You've still got to convince Julie. Don't celebrate yet." "I'm not. I will. Convince him, I mean. Thank you again." I jumped up and left the room. "Everything okay?" Kashi said. Leeta was apparently asleep again, still wrapped in the robe. "Kashi...I'm going to try to convince Julie to come back across to our side with Ezri and me, for just a while. See to his...his hand and such. Would you...perhaps consider coming as well?" She gave me an owlish look. "Is that allowed?" "Um, no." She grinned. "You folks got Romulan ale on your side?" I grinned back. "I can get it." "Count me in. This okay with Ezri?" "I didn't tell her I was asking you, too. Only Julie." "So I keep shut about it, right?" "For now." "Right. See you." She lay down again, snuggling against Leeta, who snuffled and threw an arm over Kashi. She's very affectionate, even in her sleep. --- NINE: "Can you break away from your alibis? Can you make a play--will you meet me in the dark?" Billy Squier --- Julie isn't. "Ahg!" I grunted as I hit the floor. He sat up slowly, his arm turning back into an arm as opposed to the club it had become for the time during which it was bruising me in the solar plexus. "Sorry," he said, without discernable remorse. "Did you need something?" "You didn't do that *last* time I woke you up." He pursed his lips and looked away, his face shadowing in the starlight. "Last time you woke me up I dreamt you were Jadzia. You called me Julie and took my hand; she always did that." "Is that a safe way to wake you up?" "Usually." "I'll keep it in mind, then." I struggled up on the edge of the bed. "Can you be spared for a while? Can Smiley spare you, I mean. I want to take you back with us so I can look after that hand. You still don't have all your mobility back, do you?" "No, but I thought you said it'd be fine." "Oh, you'll be able to use it. But not with the precision you're used to--I'm assuming it's good for things other than what you demonstrated to me?" "Of course it is. We have Vulcan engineers who can't handle delicate circuits like I can." "That's my point, I don't want you to lose that ability. In my infirmary, I can make sure you don't." "That wouldn't take long, would it?" "A few days at least--to be certain," I lied. "And I'd like you to consider staying a bit longer. We do have a few things to talk about." "Like what?" Bloody, he was going to be difficult again. "Like this," I said, and leaned over to him, finding his mouth in the half-dark through the obscuring shadow of his tousled hair and kissing him. I pulled back and whispered "Like the fact that I want to make love to you the way you deserve someone to. The way you had the potential to do before you were robbed of it as a child. You know I want you, you can tell that. I want to make you believe that I care about you, too, because it's true. I do." I kissed him again, gently. After a moment, he responded, reaching to steady himself on my shoulder. He was tentative again, like the last kiss he gave me in the raider's corridor, rather than either of the mouth-bruisers I thought I could still feel. I wasn't in any hurry at that point; I was perfectly content to sit there with him and kiss until we got too sleepy to continue if it was what seemed called for. And it did seem called for; suddenly I was overwhelmed with how dreadfully important it would be not to rush him. At one point I paused and pulled my shirt off; he was already dressed only in shorts. I put my arms around him and settled him close to me, stroking his hair. I have no idea why his hair is so soft. Mine feels coarse, to me. But then I still haven't figured out why his skin glows like that, either. It even *feels* like it gleams. I suppose it might be his enhancements, but if so, we've never learned anything about it. "Mm," I sighed into his neck as a warm, sweet fragrance surrounded us. Then I realized what he was doing and leaned back just enough to see him. "Jullllieee..." I scolded gently, smiling. "That isn't what I want from this, you know that." "It's all right," he whispered back, and smiled a little. "I like it, too. So did Jadzia. What did you say you thought it smelled like?" "Night-blooming cereus," I murmured back, stroking his cheek. Smooth as mine; whatever he did to keep his beard under control, he must have done it. "It's a Terran cactus." The fragrance was producing, at the moment, a comfortable lassitude in me, a heightened appreciation of how pleasant it was to touch him, how pretty the starlight was through the portal, nothing overwhelming. Either it was doing the same to him or he was just still sleepy. "What's it like?" he said. "I've never seen a real cactus." "Really?" "As chance would have it." "It's much like the next cactus. It stores water inside of it to survive; it has very smooth, soft flesh, it's a succulent. It's covered with spines, though, to protect it from anything that might damage it to get to the water. Many of them bloom, but cereus and some others only do so at night--cereus has large, fragrant, white flowers." I smiled at him, intimating the comparison, and kissed him again. When I moved back he looked down, smiling too; it was amazing how shy he could become all at once. At least, I realized then, with me. He whispered "Jadzia would probably have some insipid comment to make." "You never thought they were insipid comments when she made them, did you?" "No." I pulled him close again. He trembled just slightly, then was still. "Let's lie down," I said. "We're both tired. We can talk in the morning." I kicked my boots off and lay down with him. He curled up on my shoulder so easily I knew he'd done it before with Jadzia; and it became obvious why he slept in that position, even alone. "I'll go," he said softly. I kissed his head, but said only "You'll want to talk to Smiley before you make me any promises." He shrugged and kissed a portion of my collarbone that happened to be near his mouth. "I told you before. I can handle Smiley." "That's not what I meant. *You* may decide you're too badly needed. I know how devoted you are to the Terran cause. Ezri and I can wait a little while longer." I thought it might be best not to mention Kashi to him yet, either. "We'll see." --- I went with him to see Smiley the following morning, which he was against. Julie was, I mean. "Why not? Perhaps I can--" "I'd rather you didn't." "I know, you said that. Why?" "I just would!" "Why?" "I don't--" he paused and lowered his voice. "I don't want you to see me acting like that." "What are you going to do, beat him up?" "No, lie." "Oh, I can help you there. I'm a fabulous liar." "You are not. I can barely believe you even when you tell the truth." "Let me come with you." "Oh, all right." We proceeded to Smiley's office in Ops. Julian told him what he intended to do. Smiley stared at him, then at me, then got up and spoke to someone outside before coming back in and locking the door. He lied, all right. As far as I know, I don't have any authority to consider whether it's within the bounds of Federation protocol to consider granting aide to the Terran rebels in the Mirror universe. At least he didn't present it as much of a possibility; I'd hate to disappoint Smiley so severely. As far as everything else, it must've been about things I couldn't verify or disprove. I suppose he had to prevaricate about the situation generally, on his side, but as I said, I wasn't versed in the things he and Smiley knew. Sitting there, it occurred to me that it was fortunate most people didn't address them by their nicknames. Who'd feel comfortable in a rebellion against overwhelming odds that was led by two people named Julie and Smiley? T'ser, their field general, was probably Tessie to her nearest and dearest. Smiley agreed, of course. For one thing, it's not as though he could forbid Julie anything, exactly; they *had* to work together, their authority depended largely on each other. Someone came to the door and asked for Julie; Smiley waved him out in a disgruntled fashion, but as I started to follow, he paused me with the words "One moment, Doctor, f'ye would." "Of course." As the door closed behind Julie, he said "Is any of what he just said true, Julian?" I was dumbstruck a moment, and he sighed. "I didn't think so." "No, really--I'm not sure about a lot of it." "But your part wasn't, was it?" "Well...not as such, no. But I *can* speak to Captain Sisko. Though I have to admit, if he was going to ask for one of you to come speak to him about the situation, it probably wouldn't be Julie." Smiley snorted. "He ever tell you they've been at blows more than once?" "No, but it doesn't surprise me, especially after my Sisko nearly kissed me on the mouth the next time he saw me after he got home." Smiley chuckled again, then sobered. "Look, I wouldn't have told him no, but I had to put up a front because I don't want him getting too big for himself. Becomes positively unmanageable." "I can believe it." "Which is another reason I didn't say no. You're good for him. I don't know what you're doing with him, but keep doing it. He's been a bloody lamb lately, compared to the way he was just after he lost Jadzia." I blinked, startled. "Is this concern for him or for your operation?" "Both. I know about him. No whys or wherefores, but I know it can't have been good." I matched his gaze a moment, then nodded. "You've been looking out for him?" "If I didn't, no one would. Including him. I don't love him, but I couldn't hate him." "I'm glad he has a friend like you, even if he doesn't know it. I've encountered several Miles O'Briens in my time, and I have to admit there hasn't been a rotten apple in the barrel so far." "You're too kind. Better go after him before he finds out I detailed Shjana out there to distract him so we could talk." I chuckled, then did as he said. --- Julie glanced around when the cargo bay doors opened again and Kashi entered, in full pratt-kicking regalia; he froze on seeing her. She came up to the platform, Leeta beside her. "Hi again," she said quietly. He glanced between me and Ezri, then back at Kashi. "Come to see us off?" he wondered coldly. She looked at me. "You didn't tell him yet?" "Tell him what?" Ezri wondered. "Yes, tell me what?" he echoed her suspiciously. "I'm coming with you," she said. Julie spun and impaled me on his gaze. "She has a...medical condition she asked me to look into," I told him gently, including Ezri in my field of vision. "Julian! Benjamin's already going to have a fit," Ezri groaned. "He won't have any bigger a fit for my treating two patients instead of one. Come on, Kashi." I made room on the padd. The engineer adjusted the modified console--I already had the modifier Miles made back in my pack. Smiley moved to work the controls himself. "Good Voyage, all of you," he said. Ezri and I nodded back to him, and Ezri said "Energize." When my vision cleared, we were still there, but on one of our own cargo transporters this time. --- "I don't think he was happy to see me," Julie smirked as all four of us trooped onto the lift in Ops. "He wasn't any happier to see me," I muttered. "If Ezri hadn't thrown herself between us I don't like to think what might have happened. Promenade," I told the lift. "Computer, halt," Ezri said suddenly; she stepped up onto the deck as Kira emerged into Ops through one of the ladder accesses. She saw us and smiled as Ezri strode toward her. "Dax! Julian, you--Julian?" she didn't have time to say whatever word her mouth was starting to form when she saw Julie--I don't think she recognized Kashi at once--because Ezri cut in with "Don't worry, Nerys, I'm never going to do this again." She then took Kira's face firmly in her hands, pulled her head down, stood on tiptoe and kissed the lights out of her. Kashi immediately doubled over laughing, and Julie grinned. I was a little appalled, this being Ops, but I couldn't help laughing when Julie started to. Kira was wide-eyed as a Franciscan monk on Risa, stumbling slightly and unable to quite get her balance back since Ezri wouldn't let go of her head. And wouldn't let go, and wouldn't let go... The rest of the Ops staff was agog; several were grinning. Eventually, Nog, who had climbed up out of the pit to see what was happening, surreptitiously started applauding. Kashi immediately joined in. I said "Oh, what the hell," and started clapping, too. Sisko had emerged from his office. He wasn't clapping, but he was working very hard not to smile. The kiss was clocking in with Olympic-caliber duration and enthusiasm. By the time Kira was laughing so much Ezri *finally* had to unglue their lips, they'd staggered across half the first level of Ops, and everyone but the Captain was clapping and calling for encores. Kira gasped for air and choked "Ezri, I'm glad to see you too, but--" "I've been waiting seven years to do that," Ezri said, "and after what I've just gone through, *you* looked way too good to resist!" Still laughing, they exchanged a hug. "Come on, I think we'll leave them to it," I said. "Promenade." --- "Hm. I hadn't known Jadzia harbored a yen for Nerys." "It's still hard to believe it, that woman..." Kashi shook her head, "...that she wasn't..." "She wasn't. Our Kira Nerys is one of the sanest and most honorable people it's ever been my privilege to know. This way." I began to lead them toward the infirmary. They were both sightseeing like kava farmers at the Gratitude festival in Dahkur City, and I had to stop and wait for them more than once. I don't think that Julie even realized that when he and Kashi bumped into each other once and he touched her arm to steady them, he kept his hand on her sleeve until we reached the infirmary. "This is all even harder to believe," she was muttering as we entered; I nodded and smiled to a couple of my technicians as they greeted me and added "Up here, you two. Let's take a look at you." As people began to notice Julie, he received a few stares, and Luma dropped the tray of hypo canisters she was holding. He was gearing up for a very big snarl, I could see it. "Yes, I know, he looks like me," I said in exasperation to everyone. "It's too much to explain at the moment. Suffice it to say he's going to be visiting for a while. Now can we all get back to work?" To a subdued chorus of "Yes, Doctor" from half those present, everyone did. "Dr. Guirani," I said, "would you take Ms. Ishikawa for a deep ovarian scan, please? Thank you. Let's have that hand again, Julie." "I'm thinking of having you make it detachable, since you like it so much; I'll make you a gift of it." "Now, now. No sniping at the doctor. We'll be all through with it soon." "Julian! You're--" Miles stopped dead next to the biobed. "You're back with interest." "Julian Bashir, meet Chief Miles Edward O'Brien, engineer of surpassing brilliance and the man possessed of the distinguished honor of being my best friend. Miles, this is Julian Bashir, the man possessed of the distinguished honor of being me in his own universe." "I'd shake your hand but *he*'s got the one on your side," Julie said, with a toss of his head toward me on "he". "Um, consider it shaken. Julian, if it's not asking too much..." "Julian here sustained a nasty injury in the course of helping me get our Ezri back from the Intendant; I brought him here where I could see to it properly. And I'd probably better introduce someone else before you see her walking around yourse--too late." Miles actually staggered and had to catch himself on the biobed Julie was on as Kashi strolled up to us. "Hi. I'm Ishikawa. Do they call you Smiley here?" He stared, literally dropjawed. "What?" she demanded, irritated. "I know my fly's closed, I just rebuttoned it myself. Targ leather seems to block the scanners," she asided to me and Julie. "Kashi, your counterpart is his wife. Judge him kindly." "His *wife*? So *this* is the man. Who'd've thought. Me and Captain Smiley, will wonders never cease." Miles cleared his throat and managed. "They, um...they call me Miles here. Or Chief, usually." "Our Miles really *is* a reasonably jovial fellow, despite his current gaffed-fish impression," I told Kashi. "There's no joke to it here. Make a fist, Julian. Just don't swing it at anyone." "Very funny." "Here are the scan results, Doctor," Guirani said, coming up to me with a padd. I put my scanner down and took it. "Thank you. Would you finish for me here? Let's have a look then, Kashi..." I keyed the padd, drawing Kashi aside with me. "Do you want to discuss it in my office?" "Is it bad?" "It isn't good, but it's not hopeless. The only problem is...well. We'll talk privately. Miles, would you and Keiko care to meet us at Vic's later?" He gulped. "Sure. What time?" "Twenty-one hundred." "We'll, uh, we'll be there unless Keiko's got plans I don't know about. Pleasure to meet you both." He beat a hasty retreat. "Nice guy," Kashi muttered. "He is, honestly, he's a lovely person. But for a man who's been through some of the most appalling things that could happen to anyone, he's still rather easy to fluster. One of the things I find so endearing about him. How's that hand feeling, Julie?" --- TEN: "Went to a party last Saturday night, didn't get laid, got in a fight, uh-huh...it ain't no big thing..." Lita Ford --- "So who am *I* on that side, Captain Bashir?" Nog wondered. "You're dead," Julie said, taking a sip of his drink. Nog's expression collapsed. "Oh." "Don't feel bad," Jake told him, after a quick swallow from his own glass. "I never even existed there. Besides, you were a pretty major jerk." "What'd I do?" Nog demanded. "How ya doin', pally? And you, Kasidy, lovely as always," Vic said, coming up to pat our shoulders. "Jake, Nog, Ezri...Julian, I saw up onstage that you brought new faces. Well, in a manner of speaking. You got a twin and you never told me? And who's this charming lady?" "Ishikawa," Kashi said brightly, holding her hand out to him. He took it and bowed over it. "Your presence brightens my humble establishment," he told her, smiling. "How debonair. Your friend's a smooth cat, Julian," Ishikawa winked. "Hey, and she even slings the lingo," Vic smiled. Julie was staring in amazement at Vic. I said "You see, Vic, Julian and I aren't actually related. He's from another quantum universe. Just here for a visit. Julian, this is Vic Fontaine, he's--" "--dead, I killed him myself," Julie blurted. "Whoa," Vic said, backing up a step and raising his hands in front of him. "I don't want any trouble, now..." "It's all right, Vic. Julie--ahm, Julian--he's a hologram here." "He's a what?" "A hologram. Like everything else you see around us." He was shaking his head in disbelief. "Whatever you say." "Pull up a chair and join us," I invited Vic. "Sure thing, but after the set. I got a couple of requests from the two down at the end of the bar and from the looks of things, they may not be conscious long enough to hear them if I don't get to 'em soon. Keep a chair warm for me." He started back for the stage. "Sorry," Julie said, then smiled. "I think I put your friend off." "You didn't. He's probably quite serious. Miles, Keiko--glad you could join us!" Ishikawa stood up at once. "Well, hey," she grinned. "This gorgeous creature must be me!" Kasidy laughed behind her hand. Keiko stared, then grinned. She came over to Kashi, hand out. "Keiko O'Brien," she said. "Kashi." They stood there a moment, hands clasped. Then Keiko started to giggle. Kashi joined in. In a moment they were leaning on each other's shoulders, apparently sure in the knowledge that the two of them standing there together was the funniest thing either of them had ever heard of. Miles was looking a little green around the gills again; the rest of us were cackling at Keiko and Kashi. Except Julie. He was just staring, fingers drumming on the table. "*That* wasn't very traumatic," Ezri said, and went to get two more chairs. "Sorry we're late," Kira said, coming up arm-in-arm with Odo. "Something went haywire with my board in Ops and all my security clearances were erased, we had to reinstate them." She reached for two chairs and pushed them in at the nearest spots on the table, which put her next to Ezri. "Don't go getting any ideas," she leaned over Ezri's shoulder to mutter in her ear before sitting down. She was smiling. "Hey, my lips are staying right here," Ezri assured her. "Ideas about what?" Odo wondered. "'Lips'?" "Hi Dad," Nog was saying as Rom and Leeta bustled over, typically all smiles. Kashi saw Leeta and grinned. Rom saw Julie and jumped. "Uhhhhhhhmmmm..." "It's all right," I reassured him hastily. "He's actually grateful to you for what you did on the Alliance ship, aren't you Julian? Rom did perform the sabotage that allowed you to capture the Regent's vessel, and the cloak." "Sure. Anything you say." "The last time I saw him was from the nasty side of a holding cell force field," Rom explained to Leeta as they sat down. "Less said about it the better," Kasidy asserted and accepted a second drink from the waitress, who took everyone else's order and started back for the bar. "So, you two," Jake said. "How *is* the Terran rebellion going over there?" "I'm starting to think it's really got a prayer, as lost causes go," Kashi opined. "It's got more than that," Julie said with a sidelong look at her. "Especially since one of the best security tacticians the Alliance had was killed some years ago, about the time things started coming together. You, Odo." "Me? I'm dead in your universe?" "As a doornail," Kashi said. "Great, the ale!" She accepted a glass of blue fluid from the waitress. "How did I die?" Odo wondered. Julie, sitting next to me, gave me a downright mischievous look. "I'll get you for this," I assured him under my breath. "Blown up," Julie told Odo. "Blown *up*?" "*I* got executed," Rom intoned mournfully. Leeta patted him. "Blown up how?" Odo insisted. "That...would have been me," I admitted in a small voice. "*You*?" "You were about to shoot Smiley and me!" I expostulated. "You *blew* me *up*?" "I just shot you! I didn't know it would kill you!" I stopped myself. "Not you, him. He wasn't a very nice person, Odo. The universe won't miss him the way it would you." "And apparently you didn't 'miss' him at all," Jake snickered. "Oh, hush," I sulked. Odo sulked, too. Kira was giggling at us, not something she does often for any reason. "Well," Leeta said brightly. "*This* is certainly a morbid conversation." Ezri snorted. "Hey Ezri! Tell us about you and Leeta on that side!" Rom said. "That's cheerful!" "Uh," said Ezri. "You remember what I told you, don't you?" Rom added. "What about Ezri and Leeta on that side?" Kasidy said, an eyebrow rising. Nog looked embarrassed. "Uh," said Ezri. "What, are we married or something?" Leeta laughed. "No, that didn't work out," Kashi said. "According to you. The other you, I mean." "What?" Leeta faltered. "While we were in bed the other night--sorry, me and the other Leeta--she told me about Ezri. Said she was always off piloting and running jobs for Smiley. When she accepted a posting in the badlands you two broke up. Julian, you weren't kidding, this ale is *great*." "Tell me, do any of the women in your universe ever sleep with *men*?" Kira wondered, chuckling. Odo looked ready to melt and puddle up under the table. Miles was pink, Ezri was trying to suck on a straw around a cemented-in smirk and Jake and Nog were poking each other and snickering. Keiko still hadn't stopped giggling from her introduction to Kashi. The two of them seemed to be holding hands under the table. "You do," Julie told Kira. "But then you sleep with bloody nearly anything." "*What*?" Her upright start destabilized her champagne glass. Odo caught it with a tendril. Kasidy gave a sort of high, delighted whoop which she cut off with her hand as half the people at the table grimaced in an attempt to control laughter. "The *Intendant*," I sighed, kicking him slightly in the ankle, which hurt me more than it did him; he had his Klingon attack boots on again. "I'm not kidding," Julie insisted. "She even sleeps with Cardassians, it's well known. And *Klingons*. I don't know about your universe, but in ours, have you any idea what those people DO when they--" "Hello, everyone, sorry we're late--had to let out a pair of pants for our strategic operations officer here." I closed my eyes and gritted "Hello, Elim, Worf..." --- "Well, I won't be hearing the end of *that* for a while," I grumped, unfastening my uniform jacket and flinging it in the general direction of the laundry chute. "Get those boots off the table." Smirking again--or still; he hadn't stopped since the bloody-nearly-anything revelation--he clumped his feet back to the floor, one-two, just watching me as I pulled the blue shirt off and sent it after the jacket, then sat at the desk in a minor snit. It *was* becoming something of an effort to keep from laughing, despite the merciless ribbing I knew I'd be taking from everyone for Gods knew how long over what a terrible lot of difference circumstances *do* make, don't they? But *Julie* was obviously having such a terrific time, after he'd decided he was damned if he was going to be bored or uncomfortable and dumped a few liters of blood into our collective shark pool... "My, my. Are you actually going to be *pissy*, sir Federation?" he snickered. I met his eyes. We stared at each other a moment, and I couldn't take it. I broke up. "I thought Worf was going to have a coronary the third time you called him 'Regent'," I cackled. "Nothing next to the once that Garak did. Bloody Cardassian stole my thunder. Telling Kira 'I'm no less startled than you, my good Colonel; nonetheless, I would be honored by the privilege of serving under you, believe me'." "Odo nearly morphed a club. And I didn't think Leeta was *ever* going to stop staring at Ezri. And Kashi. God, everyone in that room was looking askance at everyone else before long." "And Keiko, both of them," he snickered. "Smiley didn't say two words all night!" "Never put his ale mug down long enough," I conceded. "How's your hand?" "Will you shut *up* about my stinking bloody hand!" He reached into a bowl of sand peas and grabbed a handful, held them out over the coffee table, frowned a moment and let them go, maybe ten centimeters over the surface. When they stopped skidding and rolling, they roughly but recognizably spelled our name. "My *God*." "Satisfied?" "Completely. How long have you been able to do that?" "Years. I can do Jadzia's name, too." I came over and sat next to him, eyes glued to the sand peas. "Have you learned to do anything else? On your own, I mean." "I...used to have a few hobbies," he said. "Haven't done anything with them in years. They were mostly to keep me occupied when Leveren was away for long stretches without me." "Like what?" He looked away. "Nothing really. I had to give them up. Leveren didn't like it." "Leveren doesn't have to be an issue any more." "He is, though, isn't he?" I sighed. "All right, the way you mean it, he'll always be *some* kind of issue, it's too much to expect otherwise. But you know what *I* meant, too." "Yes," he sighed, sliding down on the couch with his arms folded across him, staring over toward a Sulamid spun-glass wall sculpture. "Come here a moment." He looked over at me. "What?" "Turn around." Eyeing me, he did; I started pulling his shirt loose. "What now, a physical?" "No, just a backrub. Lift your arms...there now." I laid his shirt behind me on the couch. "Pull your hair out of the way..." I started stroking his back. For a moment he didn't say anything. Then he muttered "One thing I do know from this evening--I was right. You Federations are nothing but a spoilt lot of children with nothing on your minds but your amusements and your creature comforts. The only difference between you and the Alliance is you hate to fight." "Be fair, Julie. You've hardly been exposed to a representative activity. Vic's is *supposed* to be for fun." "Fun," he muttered, so low I barely heard him, but his disgust was evident. I kissed his shoulder. "I can't pretend to know what it's like to have lived your life, to live the life you have now. But everyone deserves a little fun on occasion. It's not healthy *never* to enjoy yourself, not for a human. We don't function as well at our serious business without our diversions. Take those away and our productivity becomes compromised." "Not mine," he whispered. "You're a special case. Your functioning has always depended on rigid concentration and control." I kissed his other shoulder. "But everything changes." "Nothing changes. Ever." "Plenty will tell you that we're both right," I said softly. I kept rubbing; it's very difficult not to feel a firm massage, particularly around the spine. I was pretty sure he couldn't just let this roll off, even if he wanted to, though I was sure that if he did want to, and couldn't, he'd make me stop. He didn't, at least not right away. I like giving massages; it's a quick way of making many bipedal--and some other--species feel comfortable all over; it appeals to the healer in me, I suppose. And massage greatly speeds recovery time in many cases--as do many simple, traditional therapies. Julie turned and arranged himself against the sofa back so he wouldn't have to hold all his weight up himself; I moved to accommodate him. Another benefit to this at the moment was that it's very difficult to work up a good snarl when you're as relaxed as he was becoming. Eventually, still silent, he turned around and started tugging at my uniform tank. "What? Oh, you want to do me? Certainly." I let him pull the shirt off, and he took my shoulders to turn me. His hands ran down my back, to either side of my spine, only once, and I shot forward on the sofa with a noise between a gasp and a shriek. He'd penetrated, explosively and deliciously, to my very core, I would swear he touched every muscle strand and every nerve in the path of his fingers. I was trembling with reaction, and hard. It had felt wonderful, but overwhelming. So much sensation, feeling on top of feeling on top of-- I gasped unsteadily, with a faint laugh, "CUT that OUT, you devious little minx!" I managed to turn and look at him, still weaving a bit. The look on his face was very nearly coquettish. "'Minx'," he said. "Is that good?" Without the slightest awareness of the usual mechanics in that sort of situation...he was *flirting* with me. "You forget one crucial strategic fact," I said dangerously, leaning forward on both hands, looming over him. "Which would be?" I lowered my mouth to his ear and whispered "I happen to know exactly where you're ticklish." I tongued his ear and he jumped half a meter, realized he was in trouble, and started trying to get his feet back under him, but I already had the advantage of position and descended on him. I wouldn't have done that if I'd been thinking, but it didn't frighten him at all, he'd probably wrestled with Jadzia, too. I started finding his sensitive spots and he shrieked and laughed, trying to roll me over off the couch. I managed to keep him from doing so for a brief while, but once he did, I realized *my* mistake--he knows where I'm ticklish too, and those *hands*...I let out some of the most voluble screams of my life. I wondered if either of us were going to survive. We broke the coffee table. Both of us are enhanced for stamina and stubborn enough to take full advantage of it. I got knocked nearly unconscious when we rolled across the dining table and at another point, he fell against the wall right under that sculpture and it somehow managed to hit him *twice* on its way down, contacting the floor with a horrendously loud chiming, miraculously not breaking. Both of us were a bit of gleefully scandalized oh-God-*that*-could-have-been-bad, but we were in an unstable position and when we hit the floor again, I managed to land a light bite just under his ribs and the struggle resumed. Finally a dining chair fell on us and I used it to roll away behind, then got up and fled. He very cooperatively chased me, zipping into the bedroom behind me just before the door could shut as I dodged through, laughing so hard I could barely yell "Computer *lock*!" It did, but he was already inside, making a grab for me. I dodged around the bed. "I give!" I panted, swaying and dropping to my knees, leaning on the mattress. "Uncle, aunt and a lot of little cousins!" A strange look was coming over his face; he sagged against the port. "Julian," he whispered between labored breaths, "I...feel like..." I swallowed the dryness from my throat; my voice cracked slightly as I said "Feel like what? Are you hurt?" I saw how lost he looked and got up, went and sank against the wall next to him where he'd slid to the floor. "What is it?" "Like..." he ran his hand through his hair, pushing it back, and looked up at me. "Like I want to..." he set his hand against my chest, slid it up to cup my cheek. "...touch you." I smiled slowly. "You're only aroused," I said softly. "You've felt that at least a few times before." "But *now*?!" "It's very common to feel that way when you've been roughhousing with someone you're attracted to." I slid an arm around his waist and pulled him gently to me. "I'm feeling that way, too." "It never happened with Jadzia." "It never fully happened to you at all then, though, did it?" "No...not like this, no." "In any case, it doesn't *always* happen. It just depends. But it's not unusual." He wrapped me close and pressed himself against me with a soft murmur. He was hard, I could feel him against my hip, and I'd been getting that way even before I gave him my surrender. It was one of the reasons I gave it to him, wrestling in that condition can lead to extreme discomfort in the event of certain mishaps. I stroked his hair back and kissed his neck slowly. "It's nice, isn't it?" I whispered. "Yes, but it...I'm all...muddled. I can't think clearly. I hate that." "I know, but don't be afraid. Playing at wrestling is a wonderful way for humans to release tension; you're probably responding to that as well as to what you're feeling just at the moment. It doesn't mean you're losing your focus--well, only temporarily. It's completely normal, almost no one can feel this and think straight, not without a hell of a lot of work. It's all right." "You can't think either right now?" He looked up at me for an answer. I kissed him. When I released his mouth, I said "Maybe a little better than you can, I'm far more used to the feeling, but that's only a matter of experience. I'm pretty muddled too. Come on, let's get off the floor. And *please* take those boots off, I think one bruised my appendix." I grinned and he giggled. Gods. When he sincerely, honestly laughed, he looked about twelve years old. At that moment, I thought he might have been the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. "Are you hurt anywhere?" I asked him as we got up and sank creakily to the bed to get out of the rest of our clothes. "I've got a sore place on my head that'll be a lump soon if I don't do something about it." "No...well, this arm, a bit, where that...glass thing hit it..." I eyed him sharply. He seemed to be struggling for words, which I'd never heard him do. He rubbed his forehead and then held the arm out to me, letting his second boot fall. I took it. "Where--here, where this reddened--" he cried out sharply and jerked away from me. "I'm sorry," I told him earnestly, "I didn't mean to hurt you. Let me get my kit." I went to the bathroom for it, got out my tricorder..."Julie. That bone's cracked." "Oh." "Oh? *Oh*? Why didn't you say something? That must have been very painful." "It wasn't much. If I'm not bleeding I'm usually all right." "You do not have," I said firmly, pulling out the osteoregenerator, "to tolerate things like that any more, not when there's nothing more serious than a rough game of slap-and-tickle to be interrupted. You had to learn to keep your mouth shut about things like that, didn't you?" He nodded. "Leveren had...quite a few Klingon associates..." his expression was blanking again; and, even as I controlled a massive internal shudder at the idea of what he'd just said, I cut in with "Well stop it. If it isn't in the middle of some sort of crisis, complain long and loud next time you're hurt. Especially if it was me who hurt you." "Jadzia says--said that, too. But you didn't do it, it was the sculpture." "Don't play word games, this is important. *Never* tolerate this sort of injury because--because you've been forced to in the past. It's the past." "It's not that. I was...having fun." In a few minutes, I was finished with the vascular regenerator as well and scanned his arm again; satisfied, I stroked the formerly injured place, then took his hand. "It wouldn't have mattered, it would still have been fun up to that point...and who knows. Maybe after I was sure you were all right I might have jumped you again." I smiled at him. He smiled back and looked away, bashful. I went into the bathroom with the kit to take care of my head, with a bit of well-considered swearing. I was going to have a stiff neck, too. Well, Julie could definitely help me with that. He was still sitting in the same spot when I came out, legs pulled up and arms wrapped around his knees, gazing thoughtfully out the port. And the look on his face *was* thoughtful, not focused and concentrated, and not blank. It was the first time I could be certain I'd ever seen that expression on him. I sat just behind him and slid my arms around him. "What are you thinking of?" "Kay--Kashi and I used to...sort of do what you and I were just doing. A very long time ago." "Do you think of that much?" "No. Not for years. It wasn't the same, though. I was so much bigger that she was. I always wound up sitting on her." I chuckled. "Well. She does strike me as a very good sport." "All the others in the group liked her." "And you did, too?" "Oh, yes." I was careful to show no reaction to his easy admission as he uncurled a little and leaned back against me, sliding down a bit to let his head rest on my shoulder. I helped him settle there. "There were two children who liked to try to confuse me. No one else really liked it much, or liked them, but they usually didn't do much to stop it. Once those two got pretty nasty about it, physically nasty. She was half the size of either of them, but she picked up a chromed chair and started swinging at them with it. She wasn't very good, hit either of them perhaps a third of the time, but she was so violent about it they couldn't get to her, get it away from her. She just kept swinging that chair. Until the matron came in and stopped her and took her away. We were punished by being kept alone, usually." He paused. "While she was gone, they tried it again. A tall black girl named Penda and two of her friends got in front of me, between me and the first two. They didn't do anything else, they just stood there. And the first two never bothered me again. I wondered, later...if Leveren's representative had seen Keiko through the observation windows that day. If that was why she was chosen for a fighter." We were quiet a moment, both of us thinking; eventually I said "My Keiko is a wonderful parent, like my Miles is. She has a powerful instinct to care for everyone around her. She's a botanist, she's personally affected by plants, even." I smiled. "Perhaps the same instinct makes for a good bodyguard. It's late, Julie, we should sleep. Or we'll miss the joys of being sore in the morning." He was quiet a moment, then said "All right." He didn't move; I understood that he wasn't sure if this was an invitation or not. "Come on." I pulled the sheet and coverlet down and we climbed over and in; he curled up on my shoulder. I was tired and relaxed from the play-fight, and became drowsy at once, but I was brought back by a whisper. "Julian?" "Yes?" "Isn't it sick?" "What, Julie?" "Our...playing, it was fighting, of a sort, you even...pinned me to the floor. But it only made me..." "Oh, my God." I was awake again at once, rolling over onto one elbow so I could face him. "It isn't the same thing. Not the same thing at all. Jadzia didn't frighten you, did she?" "No. We'd spar all the time. But it never made me..." "That's because you mostly weren't having such feelings at all at the time, and besides, if you were sparring, you were both concentrating on technique, not on just feeling good. What you felt a little while ago isn't sick at all if you know that the person with you loves you and would never, ever do anything you didn't want, would let you up in a split second if you said the word. It's different from...what you remember, years ago. From *having* to. Do you understand?" He only gazed at me, dumbstruck. I listened to what I'd just said to him, and took a deep breath. "I do love you," I said. "And I *won't* hurt you, not if there's any human way to avoid it. I'll hurt me first. Do you believe me?" "Of course," he barely whispered. "You're a doctor." "Do you *believe* me?" I insisted. He was still a moment; then he nodded. I couldn't be sure he hadn't done it only to placate me; I'd have given anything to know just what was running through his head right then. I kissed him and folded him close. He was very quiet. I'm not sure when he fell asleep; but I know it had to be before I did. Ezri was right. I'd overestimated myself again, bit off more than I could chew--but how could I have done anything else? How, any of the dozens of times I've done that, for any of the many reasons, could I possibly have done anything else? --- "So how's--oh, *no*," Ezri groaned, as she stepped past me and got a look around. "It's all right," I chuckled. "You're not going to believe this...but it was a tickle fight." She became pop-eyed. "A...with *you*?" I nodded, a bit smugly, I'm afraid. She grinned. "That explains this wreckage. Two grown men in a full-bore tickle fight..." "I'm surprised the neighbors didn't report the noise. We sounded like Ragnarok. I haven't had so much fun since I was twelve. Just coming by to check up on us? I was about to head for the infirmary; Julie wants to go through whatever of the computer banks I can get cleared for him and see if he can find anything that might be of significance to the rebels. He's also dreadfully curious, though he didn't say so. I would like to speak to you, but not here." "Where is he?" "I think he's still in the shower. I've been talking to Odo and Kira about getting his clearance. He may be in there a while; they don't have water showers on their Defiant, either, or Terok Nor, as you noticed." There was a soft splashing noise through the open bedroom door. "All right," I corrected myself with a grin, "forget the shower, he's in the tub." "And he won't come out until he's got more wrinkles than Morn," she grinned back. "I'll just set the terminal up for him," I said, "I've told him where I'm off to." I sat down to do so; she waited for me. As we started toward the infirmary, she said "So other than the tickle fight, how did it go after you two left Vic's?" "How *did* it go after we two left Vic's?" She snorted. "You have never seen a more amazed crowd of people in your life. They had to restrain themselves a little until Kashi and the O'Briens left; then all bets were off." "I hope they didn't take him apart too badly." "Actually they were more stunned by you than by him." "Me? Why?" "Julian. You were *doting* on him--" "I was trying to make him behave!" "--and no one can figure it out. Yeah, we've all known for years that you're impressed with yourself, but only as far as your medical prowess--" "Oh, please. Other than the fact that we look alike--" "Relax," she reassured me with a pat on my shoulder, "nobody thinks you worship him because he's you, I made sure of that. You're right, except physically, you two aren't superficially anything alike, and near as I've always been able to tell you've never been any more conscious of your physical body than a cat. As far as you're concerned it's there for you to use, not for other people to look at." "It's hard for a doctor to put much stock in outward appearance." "Of their own self, at any rate." "I wanted Jadzia for more than her looks, blast it." "She knew that. All this being the case, though, no one can figure out why you seem so fond of that half-feral antisocial creature who happens to look like you. Well, no one but Worf. He found Julie to be 'interesting, and respectable...if slightly lacking in manners'." "Worf likes Julie. It really figures." "I didn't say no one else liked him." "Besides you?" "Odo can't stand him, but he can't stand most people. Garak thought he was the *greatest*." "Of course. Anyone who can fluster me like that..." "Kasidy was having more fun watching you with him than watching him; she's always thought you were cute. Puppy-cute, I mean." "How flattering." "She loved how no one used to be able to get you to shut up. She'd sit and watch and laugh to herself..." "Oh really. When's her birthday?" "Miles, now..." I cracked up; she laughed too and continued "I've already set time aside for him on my appointment schedule. I hope he survives this." "He will. What that man has survived already makes this child's play. He can have civil conversations with his own self; his wife and his best friend should be nothing to that." "And Nerys..." "Wanted to kill him, I'm sure, and me into the bargain." "No, once she got over the initial shock, she really started to wonder what makes him tick. She knows who he is in the Terran organization. She had this to say about it--'He's a romantic figure, almost--a daring pilot, a leader of freedom fighters, a man driven by ideals, tackling hopeless situations for the sake of principle, for justice. He isn't afraid to live for his people. He's what our Julian's always wanted to be'." "And what our Kira is," I said softly, "a hero. She's very right. He is what I wanted to be." "'Wanted' to be?" "The occasional holoprogram aside, I'm pretty comfortable with who I've become by now," I said. "With *what* I've become." "You've saved the lives of thousands of people, Julian. You're no less a hero." "You've always been so conscious of my delicate ego, Dax, and I love you for it." She patted me again. "Want to hear what Leeta had to say?" "After how many drinks?" "Four." "Oh, by all means." "She never commented on Julie. While some of us were up dancing, she came over and sat down by me, put her hand on my knee and asked me 'Ezri, I thought I saw you staring at my legs once. Were you'?" "Oh!" My hand flew to my mouth to halt a gale of laughter. "She wasn't angry?" "By my psychological perceptivity? Her cleavage wasn't angry. It was literally reaching for me. If she'd arched her back any more she'd have thrown it out." "Ack!" I slapped the hand to my forehead. "Well, we can't blame this one on Julie--Rom and Kashi will have to take the fall for it. What did you say?" "I said 'No, your bosom's eye-level on me, and my eyes never get lower than that'." I staggered sideways into the wall. "Oh my God! Then what?" "She asked me to dance." "Oh--it was a slow number, wasn't it?" "You bet. Turned out she'd sent Nog up to request it." "Where was Rom?" "Dancing with Kasidy. Leeta detailed her to ask him." "Leeta--our own adorable irrepressible flirt." "No worse than me. I said yes." "In the dress she was wearing? Ezri!" "Well you should talk. You've snuggled up in just the same spot any number of times." "That's different! It wasn't in public, and she wasn't married. *I* don't get buried in her chest when we slow-dance!" "Your tough luck." Ezri grinned and wagged her eyebrows at me so exactly like Jadzia I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "While we were dancing she asked if I thought Keiko was pretty." "Keiko is gorgeous." "That's what I said." "What then, what then?" "Um...stuff I can't really talk about." "EZRI!" "I'm sorry, but it involves things I can't discuss. Professional confidentiality. But everyone knows we slow danced, so..." "You tease." "Don't be a baby." We arrived at the infirmary. "Come in, we'll go to my office. I need to talk about Julie." "I need to talk about Kashi. I went to see her this morning and she and Keiko already have the whole day planned. If you still wanted to try to get her together with Julie to work on things, we're going to have to get her away from Keiko first." "They did seem to be getting on well." "They've both regressed to the eighth grade. They adore each other." "They're *nothing* alike! Well, almost nothing...well..." "Yes, it's like you and Julie. Superficially nothing alike." My office door closed behind us and I dropped into the desk chair. "I wonder what sort of mess my files are in." "Check it in a few minutes, Julian, what did you want to talk about?" "Um." I wasn't sure where to start. "I wanted to tell you...after the tickle fight, we were both a bit in the mood for some other things." "Good fight, I guess?" "Lovely. I had a rear-cranial hematoma and he had a cracked ulna. We were both laughing so much we hyperoxygenated. But afterward--it was the being up for more than a cuddle that got to him. He's roughhoused with his Jadzia, and practiced hand-to-hand and whatnot..." I tried to explain what had happened as well as I could, without putting too many of my own interpretations on the things he did or said; she's the specialist there. "It sounds like you handled it all right," she said. "You didn't go into a morass of physiopsychological detail, and you told him the basic truth." "That's not all. He asked me, just before he went to sleep, if it wasn't sick, to feel that way because of what we'd been doing." "Did he say why?" "It was fighting, in a way, as he sees it, you and I know it wasn't that at all, but it looked like it to him. The idea rather appalled him. He made point of mentioning that I had him pinned to the floor more than once." Her expression fell. "I see. Did he panic? Fight you in earnest? Freeze up?" "No, not at all, though he fought a bit dirty on occasion." I smiled, recalling an instance of that, then continued "He chased *me* into my bedroom. But while I was explaining the difference to him, why he shouldn't think he's sick or bad for feeling that as a result of what we did, I blurted...something..." "What? Did you upset him?" "I don't think so. I said I loved him." She stood up and folded her arms, giving me a level stare. "Julian. That was incredibly irresponsible. Even if it were true--" "It *is* true!" "But he's still not capable of distinguishing between the sort of feeling you might have for him and what he's going to wind up--if he hasn't already--feeling for you. You can't love him yet the way he's got to feel for you, you know that. You've only met him a few weeks ago." "But I know him, Ezri. Not everything, not day-to-day details, but...he *is* me. Our only difference is our life experience. I know...why he reacts the way he does to things, I can understand what happens in his mind. *How* it happens. It's the same for me. I can feel what he feels, and I know why he feels it. I realize that isn't very clear, and wholly unprecise, but I'm not very clear on it myself yet." "Do you think it was a *good* idea to say that to him, then?" "I didn't plan it. But I'm not sorry now that I said it." "What did *he* say?" "Nothing really, not yet, anyway." She leaned one hip against the desk, her small face scrunched in a thoughtful scowl. "You think you love him? Romantically?" "I know I love him, but--I'm not sure if it's...I haven't wanted to say it, even to myself, it seems so...strange, like it *can't* be right, or normal, to love him as I might love anyone else, but it doesn't feel like being attracted to myself at all. He's so different. I know I just said that I can know him because he's me, but..." She sighed. "It's all right, Julian, you're bound to have some of both sorts of perceptions of him. Also, the longer you know him, the more you're going to get used to your superficial resemblances, and the less you'll notice them. But it might have nothing to do with having an inside edge on the way he thinks. I've known you for seven years, and in all that time you never once stopped convincing yourself that your latest three-week crush was the love of your life; Miles and I have nearly got our eyeballs lodged in our foreheads from rolling them so much every time you waxed poetic over your latest date. It could be that simple--try to keep that in mind. Because it isn't going to be that simple for him, and no one wants him hurt." "Jadzia wouldn't have said that," I pouted. "No, she smiled and made supportive noises because she was your friend, not your psychologist. Besides, you had Miles to point these things out to you if it was necessary." "And he does love it *so*." --- When I came back to my quarters, I didn't see Julie immediately, but quite evident indeed was the fact that the terminal had been torn from the desk without what one could call surgical precision. A stack of padds, which seemed mostly intact, had been scattered across the carpet. "Good Lord--Julie!" I made for the bedroom. He was in there, his hands scraped as he systematically destroyed the remaining portions of the terminal. I dove for him and began wrestling him for the shattered components. "Julie, stop it, you've hurt yourself. Here--give it to me--come on, let go--" He finally did. I set the pieces on a table and took his hands, turning them over; no serious damage, one torn fingernail that probably hurt. I got my kit and took care of it, then pulled him up to sit on the bed. "Now. Tell me what the devil has got into you." His face was tear-stained, though he seemed calm now, with the exception of a slight tremor that ran across him every few seconds. I noticed the sleeveless grey shirt he was wearing had blood from his hands smeared on it. His eyes were enormous, his lips pressed into a thin line. He was obviously afraid. I gentled my voice and said again "Tell me, sweetheart." He reached for me uncertainly; I pulled him in close, stroking him. "Shh, it's all right. Whatever it is." I moved one hand to tap my badge. "Bashir to Dax." "Dax here. Go ahead." "We need you in my quarters as soon as possible." "On my way." "Now, come on," I coaxed him, sitting him away from me enough to look in his face. "Tell me what happened." "It...I didn't..." he panted a moment, then swallowed and his eyes took on new focus. "I couldn't read it." "You couldn't read the terminal? I'm betting you don't mean it was broken." "It was a...it didn't make any sense." "Do you have that problem very often?" "Not like this. Not so badly." "When did it start?" "About...I'm not sure...I tried to keep focused, it didn't do any good..." "It'll be all right, I'm sure this is only temporary. Things are changing for you, the way you function; there might be the occasional problem like this." I didn't say that I *hoped* it would be occasional, and temporary; but I refused to believe the only way to regain his ability to function was to let him cut most of himself off again. I held him until Ezri arrived; he was quiet unless I asked him a direct question, and he seemed to be fumbling for words again. I liked that even less than his problem seeing the patterns in written language. His memory for verbal communication, and his ability to follow action and causative relation so he could comment verbally, had been impeccable all this time. I didn't like to think what sort of effect my attempts to get through to him would suffer if he perceived himself losing that ability. Ezri came in without signaling; not surprising, as distressed as I'd sounded. She eyed the terminal, then came up to us. "What happened?" "Julie's had a scare, and he's understandably upset. While he was working at the computer, things--became difficult for him to follow." "I couldn't bloody read the screen," he growled. "I see," she said thoughtfully. "Would you excuse us for a little while, Julian?" I squeezed Julie's shoulders and got up; she sat down, putting her arm around him. I would swear under oath I could hear Jadzia's own intonation as she said quietly to him "What happened first, Julie? Think back." I let the door close behind me. She came out about half an hour later, and sat next to me. "It's what you probably expected," she said. "Some dormant perceptions, reactions, behaviors from much earlier in his life, are reactivating, and they're interfering with his established coping and control mechanisms. He knows it, too. It's exactly what he's been afraid of." "Is he angry at me?" "Yes, but he's angry at everyone, himself especially. I'm sure you know this, but he's very torn right now. He thinks he's being a fool for trying to...do what he's doing, that it's hopeless...but he can't give up hoping." "That's good to know." "He's going to need help concentrating. There are things I can teach him, exercises, meditations. But he'll need coaching in applying them when he's in a confusing situation, too. I think Kashi might do some good there." "How so?" "She's not a trained therapist, but she can work with him on some of the simpler things that anyone could do--I can tell her enough of what she needs to know just to support Julie and keep him focused while he works." "Do you really think he'll want to be so vulnerable in front of Kashi? He still resents her." "He doesn't want to. He wants to forgive her. I think he only needs an excuse. It'll have to be a pretty convincing excuse, but it's all he needs." "I'll let you talk to her about it. What do you think she'll say?" "She won't think he'll let her. If I can convince her he will, she'll do it. *You're* going to have to talk to Julie." "Wouldn't he be more inclined to listen to you? If Jadzia had asked him to do it, he likely would have." "Yes, but he'd just do it because Jadzia thought he should. He won't say yes to you without having decided himself to do it. It can't be done if he doesn't believe in it." "I see your point." "I'm sure you already know this, but he's hanging by a thread at the moment. He's very likely to lash out at whatever's around him in this state, with little or no provocation. You might get the viscera knocked out of you if you're not careful. Or even if you are." "Do you think he might appreciate a visit to the holosuite? It might calm him to break apart a sparring partner." "That might help--and it might backfire. Remember when you were a child, Julian. It wasn't only higher-brain-function-related activity that sometimes confused you." "That's right, it might end with *his* getting trounced. Perhaps I'll just take him to Quark's and let him trash the place. I'll see what I can do." "I'll go see if I can tear Kashi away from Keiko." As she departed, I peeked around the corner of the bedroom door. Julie was picking up the various scattered pieces of the terminal. "Sorry," he said shortly. "Where should I toss this?" "Disposal chute, next to the replicator." He did, then went to the desk and started cleaning up the mess there. I helped him pick up the padds, and said "Don't bother with the rest of that, I'll have Miles fix it. He hasn't had a reason to complain at me lately." He half-smiled. "Bringing Kashi and me here to make his life a more nerve-wracking place to be doesn't count?" "He'll live. How can he possibly complain about having two of his wife around?" "From what I could see, Kashi and your Keiko are not much alike." "Neither are we, first glance. Ezri and I sort of had this conversation earlier today." He leaned against the desk. "Do you...remember not being able to read? Long after the other children could?" "Not *long* after. A few years, certainly. I suppose it did seem long, then. But I remember how frustrating it is, and how frightening it must have been to think you were losing the ability. I don't blame you for getting angry." I slid an arm around his shoulders. He turned to me, and it wasn't long before we were moaning quietly against each other's tongues. We eventually paused for breath, and he whispered "I feel so *much* with you." "I feel it too," I murmured back to him. "I never knew what it was to want someone quite like this. But I still have to wonder..." he lifted his hand from my back and rested it on the broken remains of the terminal base. "Is it worth *that*?" "It doesn't have to be a choice between one or the other, love." "You don't know that for certain, Julian. I love you. But does feeling like this mean there won't be anything left of *me*?" "No," I whispered as definitively as I could. "It doesn't. You loved Jadzia; this isn't so different. It'll take time, and work, that's all. It won't always be pleasant. But no matter what, I won't abandon you." "You almost make me believe it." "Ezri told me about some coping strategies she plans to teach you." "She mentioned that to me, too." "We were thinking that Kashi might be helpful there--only if it's all right with you both, of course. We're sure she'll be willing to help, but you have to be willing as well." "I don't know. Can't Ezri do it?" "She will be doing some of it, I likely will too. But--don't give up on Kashi, on caring for her again. You could both be very good for each other--I know, it's been eighteen years, practically a lifetime. I know the circumstances that separated you at the last. But you still understand each other in a way no one else either of you knows could share. You could do much worse than a friend like Kashi." His mouth quirked. "Funny you should say. When we were children, we pretended we were brother and sister. Until Leveren took me away. After that we were...what we were." "In a lot of ways, you'll have to start over. But it might help you both more than you think." He thought for a while, resting against me. Then he said "I'll try it. If she will. But if it doesn't...work..." "I'm only asking you to honestly try to work with her, not make promises you don't want to make." "Fine, then." --- continued in part three