The BLTS Archive - The Pride of Lions
Part Three
by Blue Champage (rowan-shults@sbcglobal.net)

---
ELEVEN :
"...What about the neighbors? What they gonna say? Is *that*
little sister gettin' carried away?"

Stevie Ray Vaughn
---

"No, follow through, follow through!"

"If I swing that far I lose my balance."

"Let me see something..." Kashi put one hand on Keiko's hip and the
other on her lead arm and said "Do it now." Keiko did, Kashi frowned,
shifted her hands slightly, and said "Again." Keiko obeyed. "That's
the problem, I've been assuming our bodies are identical, but your
center of gravity is lower than mine."

"Of course it is. I had a baby."

"That means I'm going to have to modify everything--don't worry, won't
take much work. For one thing I'm going to toss a bunch of the moves I
was going to show you and teach you different ones. You'd still be
able to do the first bunch, but I never was an instructor; I don't
think *I* can teach them to you."

"Let's take a break, I'm bushed. And I think I pulled something."

"Where?"

Keiko pulled off her loose shirt and turned her shoulders. "There.
Behind my shoulder blade."

"Let me feel--here?"

"Ouch!"

"If I rub it just a little it won't hurt so much. Sit down." They did,
and Kashi put one arm around Keiko's waist to hold her steady while
her other small hand kneaded the yielding muscle of Keiko's back.

"Ow. Ow, I said."

"I know, I know, but this will save you a trip to see Julian later."

"He'd probably do the same thing. When Miles pulls his shoulder
out--we're talking a dislocated shoulder here--you know how he fixes
it? No slings, no scans, no surgery of any kind. He grabs Miles's arm
and rams the ball back in the socket, then gives him a shot of
anti-inflammatory." She made a disbelieving noise.

Kashi chuckled. "You really like him, don't you?"

"Miles or Julian? Yes, I do, either way, I love him."

"Circumstances..." Kashi sighed. "I wonder just how far away from each
other our universes are in terms of possibility."

"Quite a long way, from what I've been told. A lot of things are
different. There is *no* Federation. Jake was never born there. A
number of people are dead there who aren't here. I could go on..."

"Life expectancy is an iffy thing in our little corner of our
universe. How does that feel?"

"A lot better now that you've stopped...hm. That is better, thank
you." Keiko leaned her sweaty person back on the couch and sighed.

Unself-consciously, Kashi caressed Keiko's breast--neither of them
could summon any body modesty when it came to the other, it just
seemed like a ridiculous notion under the circumstances. "These are
larger and softer than mine, too. I'll have to give some more thought
to the upper-body moves."

"Molly again."

"So you're what I'd look like--I have to admit I like it. You look
like a woman. I still look like a twelve-year-old."

"You're very pretty, Kashi. I don't think I'd ever have the patience
to grow my hair that long; you're one up on me there."

"I'd shave my head if it meant I could have children."

Keiko blinked. "Can't you?"

"I was a Terran slave, Keiko. All of us who won't ever be used for
breeding--one of which I was, since genetic enhancement doesn't affect
haploid cells--are sterilized."

"...oh. Sterilized how? Can Julian help you?"

"Maybe. What Julian can do is get me pregnant with one of my own eggs.
But he can't reverse my sterility permanently; my ova won't mature. My
chemistry was changed to keep that from happening. He can bring my
eggs to maturity outside of me and reimplant them. He'd also have to
give me treatments so that my uterus would prepare itself for the
pregnancy. After that, I'd be all right, but..."

"But you'd have to get pregnant now."

"And I'd still be sterile, otherwise."

"Don't you have doctors on your side who could do this?"

"Of course, but my getting to them, being who I am, is the problem.
Anyone who did it would be breaking the law--legally speaking, I'm
still a slave, and now I'm an outlaw slave. I'd have to get far enough
away from Alliance influence that finding someone who *could* do it
would be hard."

Keiko took both her hands. "I'm sorry, Kashi. Have you decided if
you're going to let Julian do the procedure, or if you're going to
wait and see on your side?"

"No. I haven't decided yet. Let's talk about something else, okay? I
don't want to waste our time."

"I wish you could meet the children..."

"We'd better not, Keiko, it might upset them. Yoshi especially, we
wouldn't really be able to explain to him."

"Mm...come on, let's take a bath, I'm going to stink otherwise. I'll
wash your hair for you."

Kashi grinned. "Okay..."

Ten minutes later, in the bathroom with the tub filling, Keiko was
staring. "What *is* all this?"

Naked but heavily curtained by her now-loose hair, Kashi picked up her
hair clasp. "This contains a microscopic piece of collapsed matter. It
doesn't look heavy, but--" she took Keiko's hand and set the clasp in
it.

Keiko's eyes widened. "That must weigh a kilogram." "About that. It
doesn't need to be *too* heavy. This..." She picked up a thin rod and
out of the opposite end of it fell thirty centimeters of long, slim
silver chain. She jerked her hand. The chain flashed in a
scintillating figure as she expertly twisted her hand and wrist to
keep it from touching her. "A few thousand beveled razor edges, as you
can see. Don't touch it."

"Don't worry."

"This, now--" she picked up an oblong black object and squeezed it.
Keiko jumped as a blade--no, two blades, one inside the other, sprang
out and locked in place, making one unbroken line of edge, a
double-edged knife twice as long as the hilt. "Doesn't really need any
explanation. Except that the tip's weighted so I can throw it if I
need to."

"No, that one's pretty straightforward."

"You might recognize these..." Kashi held up one of three silver
star-shapes, each only about five centimeters across.

"Throwing stars," Keiko nodded. "They're so small, though."

"Heavy alloy. I obviously can't keep anything very large tied in a
braid. The one that goes in the middle has a microfine edge that would
cut through my hair if it weren't set in a little concavity in the
others, it's smaller than the outside two; the others have a normal
thick edge, only sharp at the flat-edged points. Like armor-punching
quarrels for arbalests."

"Miles would know more about that than I would. Was all this...part of
your training?"

"No, they're my own innovation. I got the idea from an ancient
Japanese story I read once, a warrior with weapons of last resort
braided into her hair. It was only a fairy tale, really, but it
occurred to me that if your hair was thick enough and you were willing
to figure out how, there was no reason it couldn't be done. One more
thing." She picked up another small, thin rod, this one with a key
flush with the side of it. "It's a phaser," she said. "It's got six
low-power shots in it. It won't penetrate armor and it can't be set to
kill, not without rebuilding it, but anyway anything over a low stun
shot would use up the cell at once. Here, feel, it hardly weighs
anything."

"Well, have you got anything else under there I should know about?"

Kashi grinned. "No, just me. Is the water ready?"

They climbed in. "Once nice thing about being small," Keiko sighed as
she settled back, lying against Kashi's chest, in the obscuring steam.
"We both just fit."

They were quiet, letting the water soak the minor aches out of Keiko.

Eventually Kashi asked "Are you an only child?"

"Yes."

"Me too, sort of obviously. I imagine--this is what having a sister
feels like."

"If you're lucky, I suppose. Plenty of people aren't close to their
families, or at least not this close. Miles has two brothers. He loves
them, but they haven't seen each other in person in years, and Miles
doesn't seem to suffer for it, except on rare occasion."

"He's got plenty to keep him busy."

Keiko began to turn in the water so she could see Kashi where the
latter's head was against the tub edge; she came to rest where she'd
been, but on her front. "You really feel the lack of a family, don't
you?"

"How old were you when you married Miles?"

Keiko smiled. "My early twenties."

"How old was he?"

"Nearly forty."

"How old were you when your father when he died?"

"I was a baby...okay, I see your point, but I *have* a family now. You
don't, and it seems to really eat at you."

"I guess it does. I always wondered if it were just knowing I couldn't
have children, not that I'd wanted to just at the moment, with the
lethal uproar I live in the middle of on my side. But seeing Jules--my
Julian--again...it reminds me of the way we used to hang on to each
other. I suppose I'd better quit calling him Jules before he
blindsides me and I lose teeth over it."

"Our Julian won't be called Jules, either."

"Keiko?" Came Miles's voice.

"In here, Miles!" Keiko called back.

"Can I come in?"

Keiko started to open her mouth, but Kashi called quickly "Sure!"

The door slid open. Miles started to speak, stopped, then turned both
pink and his back. "Um, Ezri is here looking for Kashi. I was going to
ask if you knew where she was, but I guess you couldn't really miss
her."

"Thanks, Miles, could you ask Ezri to come back in half an hour if it
isn't urgent? We've still got to get rid of this workout sweat."

"Right." Miles let the door close and Kashi started laughing, holding
on to Keiko to keep her steady, as Keiko glared. "That was *not* very
nice," she admonished Kashi.

"I know, but I couldn't help it. I really like your Miles, Keiko. He's
just adorable."

"Yeah, well, that's why I married him. Do you want to wash my hair
first or should I do yours?"

---
TWELVE:
"Rebel, rebel, how could they know? Hot tramp--I love you so..."

David Bowie
---

"Where are we?"

"Japan."

"*This* is Japan?" He stared around us at the high mountain glen,
surrounded by green peaks covered with flowers and trees, small and
large, and the more distant white peaks of the mountains. Mount Fuji
was just visible in the distance. The sun shone down at a slant
between intermittent low cumulous that kept the heat at a comfortable
level. The most prominent feature of the small valley we were in was
the eight-meter falls that fell into a broad pool and formed a small,
clear, deep green lake before the water poured smoothly over a lip of
rock and down to a lower level.

"This is Japan. We *are* up in the mountains, not near the city."

"Most of my Japan is one vast--wrecked--industrial complex."

"A large part of ours is industrial as well, but not most of it. Why
is it wrecked on your side?"

"Half the volcanoes blew at once, forty years ago. Earth's weather and
seismic control is spotty since it was conquered."

"I can imagine."

"Why are we here?"

"Because I like it here and I thought you might, too. Also, after the
day you've had, I thought you could use a little mindless exercise." I
started pulling off my uniform. "And so could I."

After a moment he said "This is your program?"

"It's Keiko's. I borrowed it."

"Just today?"

"No, about five weeks ago. If she'd needed it she knows where my
quarters are. One thing I modified about it that I'll have to switch
back--ordinarily that water would be unbearably cold, which makes me
turn grey and freeze up in about five minutes. Now its--"

I jumped in; the water closed over my head and I pushed off against a
rock back to the surface. "--tolerable," I finished, wiping my eyes.

He wasn't there. I looked around; he was circling the pool, climbing
through the rocks with his usual thoughtless ease. He mounted the
ledges of stone that led around behind the waterfall, into the small
cavern that it had carved out, with its narrow lip of rock; he paused
to extend his hand into a smaller tributary of the falls. He stared as
the water arced up off his hand in several directions, wetting his
shirt, and laughed. He continued, and vanished behind the falls.

I stroked over that way. I'd been under these falls before. Directly,
I mean. You get knocked under a couple of meters and then bob up again
on the other side, in the rocky little cave.

He was sitting on the ledge with his now-bare feet hanging in the
water. When I popped up, pressing the water back from my face, he'd
been pulling his shirt off and when his head came out of it and he saw
me, he nearly fell in. "What--where did--"

"Underneath," I called back over the humble roar of the small falls.
"It's easy. Want to try it?"

"Only if you hold on to me. I can't swim."

"You *can't*?"

"To be more accurate, I've never tried."

"Well, don't worry, you can't drown in a holosuite. And I'll be here.
Come on."

He set the rest of his clothes on the ledge and I held a hand out to
him; he splashed into the water and floated there, treading to hold
himself still. "Is this right?"

"If your head's above water, whatever you're doing is fine. Keep hold
of my hand and take a deep breath, then just push into the falls.
It'll do the rest. You may get water up your nose; just breathe out
through it if you do."

"All right." He lifted his head to gaze up at the light coming through
the shifting water, the shadows and patterns on the rocks around us.
"It's beautiful."

"Yes, it is. You haven't spent much time on planet surfaces, have
you?"

"Not anywhere like this, no."

"Well, here we go, I'll count three. One, two--"

I felt a bit of shocked tugging and tussling at the end of my arm, but
when we broke the surface on the other side, and he'd gasped and
spluttered a moment, he met my eyes--his own were huge, especially
seeming so with the unfamiliar sight of his hair slicked down
flat--and suddenly began laughing, and though I grinned back I also
moved to support him, since it was rendering him a bit unstable in the
water and I didn't want him getting an unpleasant mouthful down the
trachea.

"Let's do it again!"

"Sure," I laughed, "breathe in again, and one, two--"

This time he got a lungful--but only after we'd surfaced, from
laughing during the unfamiliar act of treading water. I held him up
while he coughed and spat. He finally gasped "Once more?"

"Not much choice unless we climb out over the rock ledge you came back
by. Are you sure your airway's clear?"

"I think so. I'll count this time."

He did, and when we emerged he was getting a bit dizzy. "Come on," I
said, turning to float half on my back and kick us over to a
convenient subsurface rock, which was easily visible in the
crystalline sunlit water. "Rest on that while you get your breath."

He settled to the rock, panting, staring back toward the falls, then
up at the sun reflecting between the clouds. I nearly laughed out loud
when I realized that the position he was sitting in, and his upturned
gaze, and all that long wet hair, was putting me in mind of the famous
statue of the Little Mermaid.

He said "Bajor's sky isn't this blue."

"Do you remember Earth's?"

"A little. It wasn't this blue either."

"It sounds like your Earth's sky may be a bit mucked up."

"It is, I'm sure." He looked back at me, just considering me for a
moment. I was floating without particular effort; thin as I am, I
still seem to be fairly buoyant.

"Teach me to swim like you do," he said suddenly.

"I can try. You've already got the hardest bits--you can float, and
you aren't afraid of going under. Come on, then." I held my arms out
to him and smiled. He pushed off the rock hard into them, swamping me.
"Now stop that," I said, wiping my eyes and snickering with him as he
slid his arms around me.

His lips were cold and firm on mine. The kiss would have gone on
longer if we hadn't started to sink.

"Right, lesson one is don't expect that sort of thing to get far in
deep water," I grinned as we kicked back to stability. "Let's get you
comfortable backfloating, first off."

If I thought he was graceful out of the water, I was in for a shock.
After he got used to the basics, he was an absolute selkie. We went
from my supporting him with both arms under his back while he learned
to float, to my holding his hands as he practiced changing attitude in
the water, to him letting go of me, doing a somersault and diving for
the bottom. Alarmed, I followed him, but he only grabbed me and drug
us both back up. "What?" he spluttered. He still hadn't quite got the
trick of keeping the water out of his airway.

"Just making sure you weren't in any trouble. It was an obvious dive,
but this is...heavens, this is your first time swimming? You're sure?"

"I think I'd remember. Well...all right. Maybe I wouldn't. I've
forgotten a lot, whole blocks of time...but it seems to me I'd
remember something like this."

"You're probably right. Even if you had forgotten, your memory would
almost certainly be triggered by this much sensory input."

He stretched out in the water, trying different strokes, and I retired
to the rock I'd deposited him on earlier, to watch, in part so that I
could help if he needed it--but, this being a holosuite, that wasn't
much of an issue. I was simply enthralled. He rolled and swooped in
the water like a seal. Rather than concentrating on horizontal
locomotion, he seemed to regard this particular activity as a form of
dance.

I had to draw the line when he vanished under the falls and didn't
come back up. I went under, and my own momentum knocked him loose from
the turbulence and into the small cave. He grabbed a rock and coughed
hard; I went to help hold him up. "What were you doing down there, a
geology study?"

"I was--" hack, spit, "--trying to keep balanced under the falls,
without getting bounced back out on one side or another. I was doing
it, too, until you bloody hit me like a brick and knocked the air out
of me."

"I'm sorry about that, but I'd rather you didn't pin yourself under a
waterfall on the occasion of your first swimming lesson. Come on,
let's get out of the cave."

He particularly enjoyed it near the falls; the way the currents
drifted and changed seemed to fascinate him. He also liked the way
that if he took up a position somewhere near it, he'd wind up, without
effort, bumping into the sandy lip of rock that the current fell over
to the next level down in the series of pools along the hillside. He
braced himself there, facing the rocks, eyes closed, as the pressure
of the current pushed smoothly at his shoulders, washing his hair
forward over his chest.

He was quiet, mostly, taking it in, unless he had a question about
what I was showing him at a given moment. When he did talk, his words
were uncomplex, without the convoluted sarcasm I was used to from him.
He didn't sound childish, exactly; more distracted, and, once again,
thoughtful, too busy with his own internal happenings to spare much
attention to communicating. He did smile a great deal, for him. Which
did my heart an amazing amount of good.

I supposed Ezri would have known if there were any sort of genuine
dissociative psychosis taking place, but how radically his manner and
speech could change over the course of a few minutes, a few seconds,
still startled me. But as quickly as it could change right back, the
explanation seemed obvious; he was simply letting his guard down some
of the time. I hoped he would soon be able to communicate as
effectively that way as with it up; but I decided I was worrying for
nothing. He was just busy feeling, during those times; the experiences
of perception were new--at least some of them--and he was preoccupied
with them. I was sure that was all.

"Julie." I drifted up next to him by the rocks he was still leaning
against, held there by the current. "Our time's nearly up."

He looked sharply at me, then up at the sky. "All right. I'm getting
tired anyway."

"You outlasted me. I may go straight to bed when we get back. I
haven't swum so steadily for so long since...I can't remember. Come
on, we've got time to dry out on the bank before we need to dress."

We crawled out, literally, and both of us collapsed in the grass.

When we made it back to my quarters, Miles had been by, apparently;
the terminal was back up to its usual understated standard. "Thanks,
Chief," I muttered, plodded to the sofa and collapsed.

"Weren't we both enhanced for stamina?" he wondered, in a similar
posture, startling the hell out of me with such a casual reference to
his engineering.

"Um, yes, but we're not aquatic. Three hours practicing swimming
without a break is a workout for anyone, and we started in the early
evening."

"Let's eat something and go to sleep. I, for one," he sighed, "have a
busy day tomorrow."

"Don't we all." We followed his suggestion, though both of us were all
in to the point we hadn't much appetite. We fell in bed and slept like
the dead.

---

Warm, sweet...a fragrance on soft breath, weight on my
shoulder...gentle pressure, motion, slow rocking against my hip...soft
lips brushing my throat...

"Julie..." I turned a little to let him get closer, slid my other arm
around him, my eyes slitting open slightly as I smiled. "Hello,
there."

"You aren't angry I woke you?"

"I'm a long way from angry," I whispered back to him, finding his
mouth with my own.

"I woke up," he murmured a moment later, "and I felt like...like I've
been feeling, but it's--so much more than it was. Is it supposed to be
so...I don't know..." he panted a few times, his eyes closing, and
rocked his hips gently against me again. "I can't stop..."

"I don't want you to," I assured him. "It's normal to feel this
sometimes on waking. Especially, as I said before, when you're with
someone you already want."

I rolled to face him and helped him get out of his shorts, then got
rid of mine. Pressing close to him again, I felt myself stirring,
hardening, felt the pressure of him against my groin. He squeezed his
arms tight around me, face in my neck, the fragrance of cereus
surrounding us. It was heady and exquisite, but...

"Julie...can you stop doing what you're doing with the cereus?"

"I'm not sure," he said with difficulty, having to stop for breath
once.

"It's all right. It just makes me--makes this--even better for me, and
I want to keep my wits about me."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing really. It's just important that I not push you. I won't,
though, don't worry...mm..." He moaned again too, as we continued to
move against each other.

"Tell me what to do," he said, "if I'm not...not doing what I know,
then how..."

"Whatever you want to, sweetheart. Do what *you* want to do."

"I don't *know* what I...what I want exactly, it's so...formless."

"Not completely...formless..." it was getting a little difficult to
think straight. "Do you like this? What we're doing?"

"Yes," he nodded rapidly, and swallowed, catching another breath.

"Then don't worry about it now. We have time. At the moment, I'm
perfectly happy." We began kissing again; I'd been worried that I
might overwhelm him, but if anything he was being more assertive than
I was.

He was shaking, moaning steadily, and I was in much the same
condition...Gods, he felt wonderful, his strong, smooth body flexing
in my arms, pressed to me all along the length of us; the taste of his
mouth; his erection rubbing against me, against my own; the
earnestness of his attention and the sincerity of his kisses and the
sounds he made.

I was too caught up to be surprised when he rolled me over on my back,
straddling me; I only seized his hips and pulled him hard against me,
moving with him in sensual abandon. He slid his arms under my
shoulders and set his teeth in the nape of my neck, which made me gasp
once, but not in pain.

Then he lost hold of my neck as a bone-deep groan rippled out of his
chest and he convulsed, slick wet heat spreading between us in uneven
patterns as we moved, groaning, making us slide so easily together,
sensitizing me even more--

He suddenly released my shoulders and slid down, taking me in his
mouth all at once, and he was doing to me what he'd only so-slightly
"demonstrated" weeks ago--

My back nearly broke as I came; I had some fleeting thought of being
careful of him, trying to get him to stop before it--and then it *was*
too late, but I needn't have worried, he handled me expertly, drawing
it out, controlling my movements when they became too violent.

Finally we began, slowly, to relax. I pulled at his arms, bringing him
back up to lie with me; we embraced tightly enough to cut off our
breath.

"I love you," he began whispering, "oh, Julian...I *love* you--" he
sounded wondering, amazed, accepting.

I kissed his forehead, his temple and cheek, turned his face up to
kiss his mouth. "I love you, too." I'd never meant any words more
sincerely in my life.

We were still for a while; then I said softly; "Let me up, sweetheart,
I'll be right back."

"Where are you going?"

"We're a bit messy. I'm going to get--"

"I'll do it." He was up before I could grab him and back nearly before
I could miss him, stroking me with warm wet cloth.

"Julie." I sat up and took the towel; he let me have it, but gazed
quizzically at me.

"You don't need to be the one to do this sort of thing. And you
shouldn't have done what you did just now, at the end. No, I mean--it
felt beautiful when you took me in your mouth. But the way you did,
the things you did, that's something you did as a...as what you were
eighteen years ago. I don't want that from you, and it could be
dangerous for you."

"Dangerous? How?"

"We don't want you...falling back into old patterns. When you did
those things, you were cut off from the larger part of both your
physical responses and your emotions. Obviously you could do whatever
was necessary, but it doesn't take that much attention for a human to
maintain an--"

"What's that got to do with us?"

"People make associations, particularly under stimuli--under
threat--as powerful as what you were experiencing. If you do the
things you used to, at least so soon after you've begun to feel again,
you might began to be detached again, too. I don't want that to happen
to you."

He shook his head at me, eyes sparkling in the starlight. They were
enormous, dark, glimmering like moonlit pools. "I wasn't, though. It
was *nothing* like that, like how it was then--you told me to do what
I wanted to. Right then I wanted to do that more than I wanted to
*breathe*, don't you understand? I wanted to...feel you, in my mouth,
when you came, wanted to know I could do that for you--" he suddenly
caught me close again, beginning to pant softly with emotion and the
effort to explain. "Not only because I wanted you to feel it. I wanted
to feel it, too, you smell good, you *taste*--" he kissed me,
searchingly, and I responded in an excess of relief.

Perhaps because it had been fairly brief, perhaps because of what had
gone between us before, and his love--and mine...he hadn't reverted to
old psychological patterns, at least not this time. We would still
need to be careful. I hoped I could remember that, because my God, he
had been *unbelievable*.

We cuddled up again; I let him lie on my shoulder, not speaking, let
him absorb what it had been like, to be doing this because he wanted
to, to be able to feel it in a way he never had. I couldn't imagine
what it was like, but I knew it had to be overwhelming for him.

Hot liquid trickled across my chest.

"Julie...what's wrong?"

"I don't know. I've never felt like this. Is it normal to..." he
spread one hand flat on my solar plexus and pressed in gently. "...to
want to...be inside you? Be in one body with you? Wrapped up in you?"

I squeezed him, almost overcome myself. "Yes, sweetheart. That's what
it's like to be with someone you love, to make love with them."

"You feel like that too?"

"Oh, yes. I do."

"It's so powerful..." fresh tears spilled from his eyes.

"I know," I whispered. "I know. It's all right. I'm with you."

"It's painful, almost."

"Sometimes. Sometimes it does ache, when it's strong."

He calmed in a few minutes, and rested a while.

Then he started nibbling on me. With a final firm nip just under my
ear--no one had ever done that to me before, it gave me gooseflesh--he
asked "Can we do it again?"

I smiled. "I was hoping we would. Is there anything you'd like to try?
To see how it feels when you *can* truly feel it?"

"I'm a little afraid."

"I don't blame you, love. Are you afraid you won't like something?
That it'll upset you?"

"I suppose that's it. I don't know why I think that, though, I've done
what we just did, before, and it felt *nothing* like the way it did
with you. It felt like...nothing. Nothing much." He thought a little
more, and I'm fairly certain he was thinking about what it might be
like to try certain things with me, because he was hard again in about
ten seconds. Possibly less. So was I, thinking the same things.

Gathering him close, I turned us, settling him on his back, propped
over him. "There are a number of things I like. Perhaps you'd like
them too, we have the same sensory nervous system, after all. Although
yours is more sensitive in places..." I whispered "Can I take you in
my mouth, as you did me?"

Gazing back at me, eyes impossibly wide, he nodded. As I continued
looking at him, and smiled again, he wondered "What is it?"

"You're so very beautiful," I sighed mistily. I'd been avoiding saying
it, because I thought he might find it a substantial irritant,
considering the lengths to which he went to make himself unattractive
to people. Not that it worked. Also, I didn't like to think who might
have made that comment about him before...but I couldn't help it. He,
though, only reached up to touch my face. "You're prettier than I am,"
he said in puzzlement.

"Oh, there's more to beauty than pretty, even if that were true. You
have so many qualities...that I could never hope to emulate." I kissed
him slowly, then began to move my mouth downwards, stroking his skin
with it and with my hands, in no hurry. Letting him feel. His skin is
glorious, silky, dark and golden, and his sweet cereus scent...

I could tell how intense it was for him. He shivered, then shivered
again. I paid special attention to places I like touched, the soft
skin below his ears, the hollows of his collarbone, points of his
shoulders, nipples, the insides of his elbows and wrists...that area
at the waist just beneath the ribs, that could be either agonizingly
ticklish or powerfully erotic, depending on the circumstances. The
hollows of his hipbones...

After a few minutes, he moaned softly and whispered "Please, Julian.
Now. It...I hurt--" his breath caught in another gasp when I nuzzled
the hollow of his hip again.

"Of course, love." I kissed the hollow and moved my mouth up to his
erection, taking it in deep. Rather than the pleasant, salty warm
taste most humans have there, he managed to taste rather the same way
he smells. It was lovely. His altered exocrine system, I suppose.

His jaw tightened and he bucked so hard I released him at once, taking
him loosely in my hand instead. "Are you all right?"

"Is it supposed to...?"

"It didn't hurt, did it?"

"No, it--it shocked me--it's so much more to feel. Your mouth
is...wet, and warm..."

"We're more sensitive to that; it would feel quite intense if you're
not used to it. And even if you are, too. Shall I keep on?"

He nodded and reached one hand down to me; I took it and held it
warmly, turning my mouth's attention back to him. I was as slow,
relaxed, as I could manage; he obviously wasn't ready yet for some of
the more complicated things I know how to do. I just caressed him
slowly with my mouth, resisting the urge even to take his testes in my
free hand. Even that would be too much yet. But restraint in general
wasn't easy; I enjoy making love like that, and to do it with *him*
almost made me dizzy, and not just because of the cereus. The heat of
his body bathed me all over; I think I felt very nearly as good as if
I'd been in his position instead.

His breathing was labored. I watched his face, because the quality of
the sounds concerned me; they could almost have indicated sorrow, or
pain. I could only hope he wouldn't let me continue if he was
frightened; I knew he wanted to please me, he'd made that obvious.

He seemed to be trying not to move much, so I took his hips in both
hands and gently encouraged the rocking motion that was trying to
happen, letting him set a pace, following with it. Then I let both my
hands slide up his body, over his chest, and he took them and held
them against it, crushingly tight. "Ohhh, *Julian*...oh, GOD--"

He bucked up into my mouth, hard, and I began swallowing, pulled my
hands back and caught him close around the waist, holding him steady
in my arms as he thrashed and gasped. When he finally relaxed, I
carefully let him slide out of my mouth, and searched his face; he was
still whimpering softly.

"Julie? Love, are you--"

The moans escalated and he sobbed, hard.

I was up next to him in a breath, holding him; he buried his face in
my chest and sobbed again. "Tell me," I said urgently. "Are you
afraid? Did you remember something you don't like?"

He shook his head frantically, his forehead banging into my sternum.
"NO--no, I'm not afraid of you--I'm not--Julian, I love you so much--"

"Shh, Julie, I know, I love you too, I know how you feel...I know how
intense it is, how frightening. It won't be so overwhelming soon.
You'll be able to enjoy it more, and it won't be so...strange, alien.
And I'll still be here."

"I'm sorry--"

"Love, don't apologize. I'm very proud of you for not being afraid to
feel, even though it's so new."

He was calmer in a few moments. I was hard and aching a little, but no
one ever died of that. I could wait to find out if he was ready for
any more tonight.

"You *do* like doing that," he said, brushing my erection gently with
one hand.

"Very much. Making you feel good is quite arousing. And it's
just...pleasant, in general."

"Have you ever done it to anyone who didn't want you to?"

"Never," I said, flat and quiet. "That would be horrid beyond
imagining." I knew he hadn't asked because he really thought I would
do such a thing. He only needed to hear it at this moment.

He was quiet, then said "Let me, now." He started to slide down my
body.

I stopped him carefully. "Are you sure?"

He blinked. "Of course. I like it too, with you. You want me to like
it. No, that's not quite what I mean...most of the time he *wanted* me
to like it. But he was never concerned enough about it to make
certain. It was all right with him if I didn't...I don't think he ever
knew...how little I felt."

"It's *not* all right with me. I don't ever want to do anything with
you that you don't enjoy."

He laid his cheek against my stomach. "I enjoy everything with you."

"I'm glad, love. But never pretend. Don't worry about disappointing
me, you couldn't if you tried to. Promise me."

"I promise." He raised his head and wrapped his mouth around me.
Rather than the enhanced techniques he knew so well how to use, he
simply did what I'd just done for him, and it was sweet. He held me as
I had him, when I came, and gave a contented sigh after I finally
relaxed, a footnote to the small, satisfied sounds he'd been making
while he made love to me.

He stayed there afterward, curled up against me with his head on my
stomach and his arms around my waist. I think he liked the softness
there. My shoulders are serviceable enough, but rather bony, if you
ask me.

His aren't. They're beautifully rounded.

I was drowsy, stroking him, my eyes closing; he must, I thought, be
absorbing the feelings. Or perhaps he'd gone to sleep; he was very
still.

"Love?" I whispered.

"Yes?" He turned his head a little and lifted his eyes to me.

"How do you feel?"

He smiled, nuzzled my waist, and sighed. Then he began to giggle.

"What, love?"

He giggled more, then began laughing out loud, still clinging tightly
around my waist. "Julie?" I asked, beginning to worry.

His laughter dropped back to a contagious giggle and he managed to say
"I think...that I want to do it again."

I started chuckling too. "Well," I said, reaching down to him--he
moved up into my arms and snuggled down, still laughing--"I have to
admit, that sounds like a fine idea."

"Something else. Different."

"All right. Like what?"

"What else do you like?"

"Heavens, Julie, that list goes on. But you must have something in
mind you'd like to try."

He sighed, laughter finally quieting. He nuzzled up under my chin and
I squeezed him tight.

"Take me," he whispered. "Be inside me."

"Oh, love...are you--"

His hand flashed up, faster than mine likely could have, and covered
my lips. "Yes," he said. "Please. I've never felt much with it before,
of course...but I know how good it's supposed to be."

I kissed his fingers and moved them off my mouth. "Well...some people
like it and some don't. A lot of it depends on how you're built, and
what sort of stimuli you respond..." I trailed off; he lifted his head
and raised his eyebrows at me, waiting.

"Yes," I nodded after a moment. "I like it. Either way. It can
be...it's hard to describe."

He pulled his knees under him and sat up, taking my hands, pulling me
up too. "Then show me," he murmured. "But I'd rather not be on my back
for this time. My legs used to cramp sometimes that way."

I hated the necessity of asking this, but it had to be asked. "Were
you full grown at the time? Physically."

He looked away. "Yes. They accelerated that a little with me, not as
much as they did Kashi. So I could hold up. You know. They'd still
cramp occasionally even after I was as big as I am now."

I pulled him in and held him. "Of course you know all about what you
need personally in the way of preparation."

"Of course. But I don't need much."

"I want it to be as comfortable for you as we can make it."

"No, I mean it doesn't usually hurt me."

"That's not surprising, I don't need much in the way of preparation
myself, but let's be careful this time anyway, all right?"

He nodded against my shoulder.

"Do you need anything more right now?"

He shook his head.

I didn't usually keep anything around; I've had depressingly little
call for it since Leeta and I broke up, and she and I didn't
particularly need it anyway. So I went and replicated a plain, light
medical lubricant and brought it back to where Julie was curled in the
twisted sheets, looking so catlike in the dimness I stopped and
blinked once before climbing back in with him, kissing him.

"Here, if you don't want to be on your back..." I rearranged pillows
and coverlet to cushion and support him; he helped. I kept being
surprised by the incongruity--he knew bloody nearly everything there
was to know about sex with Bajorans, who are physiologically so like
humans the differences are mostly biochemical, not structural. Leeta
and I certainly never had any confusion, and not just because I'm a
multi-species surgeon.

But Julie's complete lack of knowledge about what those things were
like to *live*, to feel...I have to admit it kept tripping me, the
complete innocence and the extensive experience.

I snuggled close to him and he lifted his head for another kiss; I
began to carefully open and stretch him in small increments, using the
lubricant. He gasped and the kiss broke.

"Any pain?"

"No, I just, it makes me..."

"Tense up? That's natural. Don't force yourself to relax, that's too
much like what I'm sure you had to do before to be able to do this at
all. Just let me..." I murmured, stroking his hair and shoulders with
my other hand. I bent my head to kiss the small of his back, in the
hollow there where I like to feel kisses. Once again, I was in no
hurry. There was no way I was going to rush him.

He began to relax, burrowing a little into the cushioning fabric. I
moved over him, pressing myself to his warm back, inhaling his scent,
thoroughly hard again from this so-intimate touching and the soft heat
inside him. "Don't worry, I won't put much of my weight on you."

"I'm not worried," he said, and he didn't sound it. He sounded almost
sleepy...or maybe "purry" is closer.

Ready to pull back at the first sign of upset, I slid into him with
aching, trembling slowness; he inhaled sharply as the first few
centimeters penetrated, and I paused, but he didn't tense much, just
barely perceptibly. A little was normal enough.

"Tell me if it hurts," I whispered to him. "Don't let me hurt you."
It's true that it doesn't hurt me, but if there was *any* pain, he
might forget that he wasn't afraid of me.

"I won't..." his back arched slightly, lifting him up toward me where
I was entering him.

Slowly, then, deeper. He gasped once or twice, and I stopped every
time; Julie and I are rather generously endowed, and I couldn't take
the chance that the sound wasn't being produced by pleasure. But he
always told me to keep on.

When I was in all the way, I leaned over him, cradling him with my
body, stroking him again, kissing his back. "How is it, sweetheart?"
As for me...my heart was pounding so hard it was actually beginning to
hurt; I shook with the need to move, to thrust into him...

He panted a couple of breaths and then groaned, and hissed "*Push*,"
suiting action to word, shoving back against me, not hard, but so
suddenly I nearly lost my balance.

"Right, love," I breathed, and began rocking my hips, sliding
carefully, slowly, which was all right with him at first, but then he
reached back with both hands and took my wrists, pulling me up over
him and down against his back firmly as he pushed back again. "Julian,
please," he panted.

"God, Julie, I'd love to--if you're sure--"

"*Julian*!"

His tone indicated that he might turn around and kill me if I didn't
do as he asked, and since it was what I most wanted in the world to do
at that moment anyway I slid my arms under his shoulders, got our
balance right, and began in earnest. He groaned loudly and his back
bowed again. Being a doctor has its advantages in lovemaking; and so
does sex with someone built exactly the same way you are. Just as I
knew where he was ticklish, I knew precisely what to do for him now.

Maybe too well. He was very, very responsive, and the way I was
feeling, it was completely irrelevant that I'd already made love
several times that evening. His movements might have been artless,
unpracticed, but they were all the more powerfully arousing for their
sincerity, and if I feel as soft and hot and incredible inside as he
does, no lover I've ever had who's done that with me has the slightest
cause for complaint--

"Oh blast...Julie...I think...um--I think I'm--"

"Yes," he whispered, then louder, nodding frantically, "Yes--"

"But...you aren't...I mean isn't it too soo--"

"JULIAN!" he snapped at full volume.

I came so hard I almost fainted. I think I shouted something, and I
think he did too. We lay wrapped tightly together on the cushions as I
pounded into him, until I could finally open my eyes, weak with
pleasure.

He was very carefully moving out from under me, letting me slide out
of him, but when I started to get up to get my weight off him and let
him stretch out, he slid out from under me like mercury and pressed me
back down where he'd been.

"Let me now," he said, as he had before; I barely had the wherewithal
to nod, and no sooner had I than I felt him touching me with the
lubricant that warmed very quickly on skin.

"You don't need to be as careful," I managed to pant. "*Please* don't
be as careful."

"Now?"

"*Now*."

He slid half into me in one stroke, and all my muscles loosened as the
sweet relaxation I always feel at first flowed over me. Another stroke
and he was in all the way and I gasped at the sensation. It's more
intimate than anything else I've ever felt, dizzying, the feeling of
holding someone inside you, feeling him move, and when he touches
certain spots inside that are famed in story--straining against him,
the mindless need for *more*, deeper, faster...

He was up over me, against my back. "All right?" he whispered
raggedly.

"Now, Julie," I groaned, and he did, thank God not being as careful as
I had, I'd have exploded. So would he. I felt his teeth fix in the
back of my neck. I know he tried to keep his climax back, but the
sounds he was making, the frantic movements, were nothing short of
desperate.

"Do it, love," I said, "it's all right. Please..."

And he slammed against me with an almost anguished shout, then again,
and again, his body spasming sharply against me, and I was
sure--completely sure, for just a second--that I could feel his
pleasure as well as my own.

Perhaps it was the cereus.

When he'd mostly stilled, trembling in every limb, he pulled himself
carefully out and I turned in the cushions and accepted his weight as
he collapsed. Quivers still ran through him, through us both, and I
stroked him with anxious tenderness, soothing, panting myself, still,
as we settled into a warm damp tangle. Our breathing eventually began
to slow.

I thought he panted longer than I did, shivering, but I was wrong. He
was crying again.

"It's all right," I told him, over and over. "It's all right. Don't be
afraid..."

Suddenly he lunged up, his arms sliding around my neck and tightening,
clinging to me desperately. "I have...I have to tell you something,"
he managed to choke out, "...but I don't know what it *is*!"

"Don't push for it...I think I understand. I think I already know.
Don't fret, love, I understand."

"I don't," he whispered.

"You will, someday."

"I love you, so...much..." he sighed shudderingly, settling to my
chest again, hiding his now-soft weeping in my shoulder. "Julian, I
feel like it might kill me."

"It won't. But I know what you mean. I love you, too. Very much."

---

A shower and some fresh sheets were in order then. I wasn't used to
the way I *still* felt, even after all that. You see, the fact that
one is enhanced for stamina--all bodily systems--is rather irrelevant
in lovemaking when one's partners aren't, if you see what I mean, and
I'd grown accustomed to stopping at a certain point, such that I never
thought twice about it.

Julie and I didn't have to. I knew we should, we were going to be sore
as the devil in the morning, but on this one occasion, at least, it
didn't seem the thing to do. Julie was immersed in a world of
possibility and I was immersed in him. I did keep him from performing
too often with me as he had with Leveren, using his enhancements, his
training, though he insisted it wasn't anything *like* what it had
been with Leveren even so, and I believed him. But I thought it would
be unwise, at this early stage, to push our luck. Besides, I wasn't
sure how much I could take.

But he cried so much I was in continually recurring concern that he
was frightened of me, or upset about what was happening at any given
point--memory triggers can bring back all sorts of horror in an
instantaneous flood, sometimes for no reason that's immediately
apparent--but it always happened that he was only brimming with
sensations and emotions he had no idea how to deal with. That was
finally the reason I stopped us. He apologized again for crying, and I
nearly burst into tears myself.

"Love, no," I told him, rocking him gently. We were on the floor by
that point, a sheet spread there; the bed was a wreck *again* and
another shower was in the offing soon. "That's not it at all. I'm glad
you can feel, I only don't want it to begin to frighten you. Enough is
enough. You need to rest."

"It'd frighten me if I was alone. But I trust you."

My eyes began stinging. I knew what he meant, and it wasn't quite what
it might sound like to most people. I knew too well what it was like
to be with someone, even physically as close to someone as this, yet
be alone. But he wasn't alone with me. He trusted me.

And since I *knew*, at the foundation of my own soul, exactly how hard
that was for him to do...it's hard to describe the way it made me
feel.

Eventually, we reassembled the bed to some degree, since after all
that we were in no condition to sleep on the floor. He was asleep now;
I'd managed to get one arm out from around him so I could lift up on
an elbow to see him. His expression was smooth and relaxed, the scowl
practically screaming its absence. The second shower had removed the
traces of tears, and he was beautiful and serene.

I was stroking the shining dark waves of his hair where it lay spilled
against the mattress, thinking about what Ezri had said. I couldn't
clearly remember the last time I'd felt just like this. Fond as Leeta
and I had been, and still were, of each other, our affair had not been
what one could call passionate or headlong. There had been a few
others since this posting began--Sarina being the most recent, and I
had finally had to accept how little I--or anyone, so soon after her
recovery--could possibly know her. There'd been only one or two of any
real significance before I was assigned here. The only thing I could
really compare this to had been at least ten years ago, now.

"Sweetheart," I murmured, and wondered what had brought the word's
usage on. I'd never called anyone that. Really I found it rather
treacly even as endearments went, but it seemed to fit my feeling for
him so well. Oh, I'd called children that on occasion, I usually
called Molly O'Brien "sweetie", like her parents did. I wondered if
that could have anything to do with it, my perception of his childhood
having been truncated, the idea that his growth had stopped when he
turned seven. Condescending, as I said before, as well as inaccurate.
His growth had changed, and not for the better, been twisted,
corrupted--but it had not stopped.

I felt an unexpected sob try to constrict my chest and swallowed
against it. "Love," I whispered, my lips brushing his forehead. "How
can I send you back to...back there? As you are now? How can I let you
go at all...?"

Even if I could, it would be some time before he was ready. I was
going to have to think of what to tell Captain Sisko.

---

I think it was not feeling him next to me that finally woke me.

I hauled myself half upright at once. "Julie?"

"Don't move. I'm nearly done."

"What?" I looked around; Julie was curled up, either naked or in
shorts, in a chair next to the bed, with something flat in his lap. I
realized he'd dragged the chair that was usually by the port around to
the position it currently occupied. His hair was wet again and pulled
back, twisted into a loose coil on his shoulder, out of his way. The
floor lights were on at about half.

"What are you doing?" I wondered, blinking sleepily.

"Lie down and close your eyes and I'll tell you."

Amused, I smiled and did so. "Well?"

"Stop smiling." "Julie..."

"Remember the hobbies I mentioned when you asked if I'd learned to do
anything besides spell my name with sand peas?"

"Yes."

"This is one of them. Stop *smiling*, I'm trying to get your pout
right."

"My *pout*?"

"You pout in your sleep."

"I do not!"

"Lie *down*!"

I sighed, slumping back to the mattress. "Do I get to see this when
it's done?"

"Of course, you idiot. What did you think I was going to do with it
after all this trouble, eat it?"

"I've learned its best not to make any assumptions where you're
concerned, sweetheart."

He made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a muffled giggle.

I smiled, eyes still closed. "Like that, do you?"

"Stop smiling."

"I hope this isn't a complete nude study."

"No, I that that might bother you--bloody squeamish Federations--so I
used artistic license and sketched in sheet where I thought you might
appreciate it."

"You can call me squeamish after last night? What time is it?"

"Eleven hundred."

I squawked and sat up. "I'm late! Did you shut off my alarm?"

"I called the infirmary and told them you'd be in this afternoon. Also
you have a staff meeting at sixteen-thirty."

"You told the infirmary..."

"Well...you did. They thought that was who they were talking to. Now
lie down or we're going to be here until you have to meet Sisko."

I sighed and lay back down. "Like this?"

"No, you look annoyed. Stop scowling, pretend you're asleep
again...you're not really angry, are you?" he added softly.

I smiled. "No, love. Just startled."

"Stop smiling."

I sighed and managed to relax. By the time I thought I was going to
scream if he didn't let me scratch my nose, he said "All right, you
can move."

I sat up. "Let me see."

"It's not done. I won't need you any more for this one, but there's a
great deal still to finish."

"Just a quick look."

"No! Now go away."

I got up and braced my hands on his chair, leaning threateningly over
him. "Come on. I was good."

"You were fantastic. You still don't get a look until I'm done." I
stifled a snort and said "All right, then, can I at least have a
kiss?"

"Sure." He reached up to me and what I had intended to be soft but
brief became instead less than soft, then less than brief, then he set
the sketch pad down--on its face--on the table next to him and pulled
me into his lap. "Mm...you smell wonderful." He bit my neck again.
"And you taste even better."

"There's not a lot of room in this chair..."

He made a pleased noise at that observation and I laughed. No, he
hadn't bothered with shorts.

---
THIRTEEN:
"Lay It On the Line"

Triumph
---

I arrived at the wardroom out of breath; it turned out a shipment of
samples I'd specifically asked for, connected with a current project,
had arrived that morning, and I'd had quite a bit of catching up to
do. I was a touch late even so, but Kira was, as well, so I wasn't a
standout. We exchanged small smirks as we ducked through the door
together and hurried to our chairs.

The Captain called the meeting, went through old business and
individual comments before commencing the latest station briefing. His
comment to me was "Doctor, I read the report you filed on our guests
yesterday evening; I'd like to speak with you about it after the
meeting. You too, Counselor."

Ezri and I exchanged a glance and nodded. Her half of the glance had
consisted of the message "Step carefully, Julian, I won't be calling
in any favors to save you."

I was a bit edgy but otherwise calm; I had known this would be coming
in the near future, though not exactly when, and had given some
thought to my arguments. Ezri would not have to back me any farther
than some neutral professional opinions, if I played things correctly,
though I did think I could count on her to help me plead Kashi's case.

As the meeting was breaking up, Miles laid a hand on my shoulder as he
passed my chair on the way out, leaned down and muttered in my ear "I
canceled our regular booking at Quark's until you tell me differently,
all right?"

I squeezed his hand. "Thank you, Miles. That was a good idea. I'll let
you know."

"Right." He continued out. I looked after him just a moment, smiling.
Not another word out of him. Miles is the most solidly supportive and
dependable man in the entire quadrant, I will lay odds any day; no
matter what, if you're his friend, absolutely no more need ever be
said. It'll always be flattering to me that he cares for me so.

"Doctor, Counselor," the Captain said. "I'd like you to bring me up to
speed on our guest's conditions. First, Ms. Ishikawa. I take it,
Doctor, that you're certain her sterility cannot be reversed?"

"A regular cycle of ovulation cannot be reinstated, sir, no. My
research indicated that there are hypothetical treatments for similar
conditions of infertility that are brought on by natural causes, but
no experimentation has been done beyond the stage of computer models,
and none of the treatments were designed to correct this sort of
deliberate sabotage. As near as I can tell, the method is employed
*because* it cannot be reversed, but the genetic material of the
subject can still be made available under laboratory conditions. Kashi
was a bodyguard; her...her employers would have wanted to take no
chances on the possibility of her becoming pregnant, which would
render her useless for her intended purpose; but they could have her
ova brought to maturity should they decide...to..." I cleared my
throat. "Breed her, as it were." I stared at the table. I knew and
liked Kashi. Talking about her this way felt intensely disrespectful.
It wasn't something that I would have noticed or been troubled by only
a few years ago, but things had changed. I had changed.

"So you would have to perform some sort of implantation procedure,
according to your report?"

"That's it exactly, sir. Needless to say, she's not sure how she feels
about the idea. She doesn't know how much time she has to decide, but
since this is likely to be her only opportunity ever to have a child,
she's afraid to arbitrarily decide against it on the basis of her
current situation in her home universe."

Sisko steepled his fingers, elbows braced on the table as he stared
into space. "That's very unfortunate, and she has all my sympathy,
believe me. But she must realize her time is extremely limited."

"How limited? Sir," I added.

"I'm not entirely sure yet," Sisko sighed after a moment. "You
see...my report to Admiral Stephanopolous did not include specific
mention of the fact that Ms. Ishikawa and your counterpart, Doctor,
did not return immediately to their home universe. I said something
along the lines of their having 'brought' you and Dax back home. But I
haven't much time, and I can't predict what sort of luck I might or
might not have extending their time here when I file my next report."

Ezri and I exchanged another look. "We'd be willing to make additional
statements to the effect that my rescue would have been impossible
without them both," Ezri said. "Well, without Julian's counterpart,
and Kashi was willing to go out on a limb for me even after she didn't
need me any more. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that she
wouldn't have left me there, despite Julian's arrival."

"I'm aware of that, and if this were any other circumstance--had you
been kidnapped by the Dominion instead, for example, as Doctor Bashir
was, and Ishikawa and Captain Bashir were citizens of a neutral
power--or even if they were Vorta or Cardassians--who had made your
escape possible, the Federation would be more than willing to provide
them any amount of medical care that they needed for any length of
time, offer them asylum, anything that seemed called for. But this is
another *universe* we're talking about. We have no idea how much
extended transfer of matter alone, much less of sentient beings, will
affect both our universe and theirs in the long run."

"We know that, sir. But you were in the Mirror universe for longer
than Kashi and Julie--my counterpart, I mean--have been here."

"I know that. And I personally am willing to give them more time. But
I need a figure, you two. I have to have something to give the
Admiral. Julian, your counterpart. Your description of his condition
was rather vague, but it seems to be far more the sort of territory
Counselor Dax should be covering, rather than being the province of a
surgeon."

"Julian is a qualified counselor, sir, even though he isn't a
xenopsychological specialist like me," Ezri said. "Julie--Julian's
counterpart--is human, and his condition does fall within human
psychological profiles. Plus Julian has, for obvious reasons, an
especial insight into his emotional processes. Also I *am* involved in
the case."

"Through your expertise or through your carrying the memories of his
former partner?"

"Both, sir. Julian and I are both important to his case."

"This sort of...trauma, from what I understand, can be very resistant
to therapy."

"It usually is, Benjamin," Ezri said. "That's a rule rather than an
exception." Ezri and I exchanged another look, not pleased at the way
things were going.

Neither was the Captain. "So effective treatment of his problem will
almost certainly take a great deal of time. In fact, if I'm not
mistaken, such courses of treatment commonly take years, even
excluding the lifetime of coping and monitoring that usually follows
the most intense segments."

Ezri chewed her lip. I hemmed and hawed a moment, then said "You're
right. Sir. But at least...if we even had time to diagnose him
appropriately, set up a course of treatment, provide him any
assistance at all..."

"A figure, please, Doctor? Counselor?" he sighed, sliding down in his
chair and folding his hands.

Ezri and I exchanged yet another look. I raised my brows at her.

She looked back at Sisko. "Can you give us a week?"

He frowned.

We were quiet.

"A week. I can promise you no more than that. And let me say that I
may have to go out on something of a slim limb to get you that. My
report on the situation goes in no later than day after tomorrow."

"Which is quite a concession in itself and we appreciate it greatly,
sir, thank you," I said in a rush, standing up. Ezri stood too,
nodding, saying "Thanks, Benjamin, we'll get right on this and get you
a report."

"I'm sure. Dismissed, Old Man. By the way, are we on for Socks versus
Yankees with Jake and Kas tomorrow afternoon?"

She grinned. "You bet we are. I might bring Kashi...if it's all
right?"

He looked mildly amused. "Sure. Kasidy says that Ms. Ishikawa can be
very entertaining company."

I nodded to the Captain and started to follow Ezri out; he halted me
before I'd finished my first step. "One moment, Doctor."

Uncertainly, I turned back to him. "Sir?"

"Sit down." I did, and he came to take the chair next to mine.

"Is something wrong, sir?" I asked, as Ezri escaped the room.

"Not exactly wrong," he said, pondering, as he crossed his legs and
folded his hands in his lap. "I'm...hesitant to say this, for fear of
provoking a defensive reaction."

I was still a moment, then sighed. "What have I done, sir?"

"Nothing that I know of. Before I go on, I want to say this. In the
last seven years, I have come to have the deepest respect for you as a
doctor and a human being, Julian. You are a model of compassion,
integrity, selflessness and, if I may say, brilliance in your
profession."

I winced. "This is going to be horrid, isn't it," I muttered.

He smiled. "Maybe a little sting." I managed to smile ruefully as he
continued. "I said that because I want you to know that I honestly
believe you to be one of the most ethically centered people I've ever
met, without becoming knee-jerk in your responses to situations. You
have only one notable shortcoming as a Fleet member, and it's one
someone like you could scarcely avoid."

"That would be?"

He considered. "You have demonstrated a pattern of behavior in the
past--relax, this is not leading up to an accusation of any kind. But
if I may mention examples...your tendency to become enmeshed in the
immediate needs of your patients, or those under your protection...the
Blight sufferers, where you took it upon yourself to let the runabout
leave you stranded in the Gamma quadrant in order to care for one
young pregnant woman; the genetically enhanced patients at the
Institute, for whom your fellow-feeling ranneth over to the point they
wound up nearly passing sensitive strategic information to the
Dominion, and your insistence on allowing them to stay here for Sarina
Douglas's sake after they had broken three Federation laws, one of
them quite seriously, to get her here without permission--hush,
Doctor, I'm not done. There is also the occasion of your--"

"*Please*, sir! I take your point."

"Which is that you have a definite history of becoming caught up
personally in your missions and cases. Now, believe me when I tell you
this." I controlled a more-than-startled reaction as he reached over
and covered my hand on the conference table with his own, folding my
fingers up in his. He continued, as though holding his CMO's hand were
quite a normal thing, "It is apparent to everyone who is in any way
familiar with you, your record, or your work, that you are a doctor
first and a Starfleet officer second--"

"Sir--!"

"--and if that were not the case I would not have you as head of the
medical department on this station. You are not an administrator. You
are not a Starfleet advisor. You are a *doctor*; if you were anything
else, I would have requested--entirely without prejudicial language,
of course--a different chief medical officer. I probably shouldn't
tell you this...but I have also grown quite fond of you over time.
Though there *was* a time I wouldn't have thought that possible."

Taken aback, I managed to smile through my bemusement. "It's all
right, sir, Ezri already told me that you...she told me. And nobody
ever likes me at first. If they ever do."

"As may be." He sighed, let go of my hand and stood, strolling a few
pensive steps away toward the viewscreen, folding his arms. "You know
that your counterpart and I have a very brief and very explosive
history."

"I know him in a way you don't, sir," I said.

"I'm aware of that. It's part of my point. Given who you are, Julian,
I think it's impossible to assume you aren't already affected by
his...particular plight. He is you. A less fortunate version of you,
correct?"

"He wasn't enhanced as I was, sir," I muttered. "That's true."

"Isn't it possible," he continued, "that you might see the relevancies
of his case in a more immediate light than if he were anyone else?"

"Sir?"

Sisko sighed and stopped being so careful. "I think you should
remember your own tendencies. You're going to want to give him more
attention than you would anyone else. His difficulties seem more
intense and more needful than they would if he were someone other than
your own counterpart."

"I can see why you were worried I'd be insulted."

"I know I'm presuming, here, to analyze *you*, as well as criticizing
your professional detachment and judgement. I can only ask you to
understand my concern. Believe it or not, it *is* for you, as well as
for me, the admiral and the universe at large."

It helped to remember how he'd paved the way with a cartload of
preparation about his respect for me...and I have to admit having
Captain Sisko hold my hand made me wonder if I hadn't been missing
something in our relationship all this time. He has paternal feelings
for many of the people under his command; now I was forced to wonder
if I didn't in some way more directly remind him of Jake than everyone
else did.

Torn between outrage at his apparent distrust of my professionalism
and flattery at the lengths to which he'd gone, I realized something.
He didn't know about me and Julie, I hadn't told him...and I still
wasn't going to tell him.

*That* realization caused my response to crystallize. "Sir, I
understand your concerns, and I can't deny your points about my
behavior in the past. All I can say is...that I'll try to keep my
perspective."

---

I got back to my quarters, looking forward to telling Julie that so
far, things were going well, or as well as we could expect. Julie had
a visitor, though, it turned out.

"Hello, Elim," I said, and jumped myself as Garak did. Coming in, I
eyed their current configuration; Julie was sitting braced on the
couch arm next to where Garak was, on the cushions; he'd had one hand
resting on Garak's neck ridge. He unhurriedly removed it as he looked
up at and grinned his feral grin at me. He was dressed in the mesh
utility vest I'd seen him in before, without a shirt under it, and a
pair of cream-colored slacks so tight I could trace his breakfast,
tucked into his soft brown ankle boots.

"Doctor," Garak said, standing up, also unhurried. "Your staff meeting
just broke up, I take it?"

"Captain Sisko had Ezri and I stay to discuss Julian and Ishikawa. Was
it me you wanted to see, or were you just popping in on Ju--on my
counterpart here?"

"Either or both of you," Garak said easily. "I wondered, since our
weekly lunch date is tomorrow, if you would be canceling, or perhaps
bringing your guest with you?"

"Oh, yes, I'm glad you came by. It'd gone out of my head. I'll be
there. Julian?"

"I'd be honored," he murmured, and his eyes turned to Garak with an
expression I wasn't sure I could identify. Not just as I stood there,
at any rate.

Garak seemed to sense my unease. "In that case, I'll be looking
forward to seeing you both. If you'll excuse me, I have a few matters
to finish before I close this evening."

"Of course. We'll see you tomorrow."

Garak gave me a brief-nod version of his short bow as he passed me on
the way out.

No sooner had the door closed behind him than a low, evil laugh came
rippling from Julie's corner of the room as he turned and fell
backward onto the couch, closing his eyes and sprawling in wicked
merriment. "Julian. You're a bit taken aback," he chuckled, low in his
chest. "Something amiss?"

"What was *that* all about?"

"What's it usually all about with you two?" Julie swung his legs down
from the sofa arm and sat up, tucking one leg beneath him and throwing
an arm across the back of the couch. I'd never seen him look more smug
or catlike than he did at that moment.

I came over slowly and sat next to him. "You did something to
discomfit Garak, Julie; you weren't rude to him, were you?"

"On the contrary. I was more polite to him than *you've* ever been."

"What are you talking about?"

"You have no *clue*, have you?"

"No, I don't. Enlighten me."

He began to laugh again. "Don't worry, I wouldn't miss it. That man
wants you so badly he can taste it."

"WHAT!?"

He broke up again, reveling in my brain-dead astonishment. As I
mentioned, this laughter was not particularly camaraderie-laden in
nature.

"Do you mean what it...what I...?"

"Julian! He wants to get you out of that uniform for three or four
weeks and give you a lesson in Cardassian physiology that'll leave you
with indelible scale imprints!"

"You're out of your MIND!"

"And YOU are unbelievably WITLESS, Federation!"

"Julie, you're imagining things. Garak and I may seem to be flirting
on occasion, and occasionally perhaps we really are..." though Julie
had never seen us do so. The only exposure he had to what was between
Garak and me was the not-very-specific glimpse he'd had at Vic's.
"...but that's a long way from..." I was having a little trouble
keeping track of what I was saying.

"Let me guess. Recently there was a period when he ravaged you
mercilessly every time you tried to open your mouth."

"Recently there was a period during which I was pretty bloody
depressed and giving *everyone* I cared about the harsh side of my
vocabulary, not to mention my facial repertoire. Garak's the only one
who didn't just put up with...no, Julie, he wasn't under the
impression we were...well, doing *that*."

"He wasn't under the impression you realized it, but you'd better
believe he had the time of his life with it."

"How do you know any of this? You weren't--"

"Julian! It was my *job* to know things like that! It's my job--was my
job to realize when someone wanted me and respond to it. Klingons and
Cardassians included. I know just how they operate, you see. It was
made damn bloody sure that I knew it."

"Perceptivity...Kashi said, when you were first...reintroduced..."

"She was being snide, but yes, this sort of thing is what she meant.
Total recall must be so convenient..."

"Is that why you were...touching his..."

"Remember when I let you think I was about to return the favor when
you were massaging my back? Do you honestly believe the move I used on
you was designed for the pleasure and edification of *humans*? Could
*you* have taken that more than once or twice? Cardassians, now..."

Quiet, lips pressed into a smirk, eyes glittering coldly, he watched
my face as several thousand moments, occurrences, exchanges, looks,
words, all with Garak, went through my head...and my perceptions of
all of it, back for years agone, underwent a sea change. Speaking of
rich, and strange...bloody rich all right...

I rested my forehead in my palms. "Oh my...oh my God. Are you sure?"

"Do you think I'd lie about it?"

"No, I just wanted to know if you were *sure*."

"Of course I'm sure," he said in disgust. "Seven *years*, Julian.
You're a stupid bloody fool." He sighed. "Do you want to see that
sketch?" He got up and went into the bedroom. I sat there and stared
at the floor in a complete tizzy.

He came back and sat next to me. When he set the sketch pad in my
hands, Garak mercifully vanished from my consciousness for a few
moments.

It was beautiful, despite the primary subject matter--he's right, I
pout. If it weren't for the richness of tone, I might have thought I
was looking at an old black-and-white photograph--the word "sketch"
seemed wholly inappropriate.

"Julie, it's...amazing. How did you manage...to get such depth, such
a...I'm not up on artistic terminology, how did you get such a
glowing-from-within effect with a sketch pencil?"

"Three sketch pencils. Much finer than anything I've had opportunity
to work with before."

I looked up at him. "You said you gave up drawing because Leveren
didn't like it. When was the last time...?"

"I'm not sure. A year or two before Kashi and I escaped severally from
him."

"Then it's been nearly twenty years? This is the first since then?"

"That I recall."

"I can't even imagine what you could do with practice."

"If I wanted to practice. And if you like that, you can have it."

"I'd love it. Thank you, sweetheart." I put my hand on his shoulder
and leaned in to kiss him. He was a little resistant at first, but
warmed up in only a moment. I don't think he could understand why it
didn't matter what he said to me, I just wouldn't get angry with him.
Eventually, he was going to start testing me again, and I'd have to be
ready for it. Rolling over was only going to be effective in defusing
his now-natural bellicosity for a brief while longer. Suddenly he took
the sketch pad from me, straddled my lap and started unfastening my
uniform.

"Are you sure...mmph...you wouldn't rather have dinner first?"

"You shouldn't have kissed me. How do people...mm...handle the way all
that touching...makes one..."

"We're used to it, love, that's all. But with Garak--" I managed to
pull back from him a little. "What were you doing with him? Didn't
touching him make you want to do this?"

He looked back at me, honestly puzzled. "That's you," he said. "Not
him."

"I don't understand."

"What don't you understand? You," he repeated impatiently. "I only
feel this with you. I'll only ever want *you*."

"You don't know that, sweetheart."

He just looked at me like I was an idiot--and when he looked at me
that way I tended to feel like one--and then got off of me preparatory  
to pulling my clothes off.

What could I expect, after all. He was in love; and desire was so new
to him. He couldn't know that the feelings deluging him right now
might not only ever be for me.

"We talked about whether you should be doing the things you used to do
right now. That includes people besides me."

He shook his head, blowing the concern off. "I've told you. That's
meaningless. You're the only place that it matters."

---
FOURTEEN:
"Na na na na na, na NA NA NA...I wanna be sedated..."

The Ramones
---

"Kashi?" Ezri sounded the signal again. "Computer, locate...oh, forget
it. Computer, open, authorization Dax Delta four."

The door to Kashi's quarters slid open. Ezri stepped in, looking
around. "Kashi? Are you AAAK!"

Emony performed a fast tuck-and-roll as a silver shape whizzed past
Ezri's head. something clanged off the door lintel with a whizzing
PING and clattered to the floor, sliding all the way back across the
room to the bedroom door.

Ezri got up. "Kashi, *what* are you doing?"

"Relax, just throwin' a scare at you." Kashi giggled as she emerged
from the dimly lit bedroom. She was dressed in a pair of the stretchy
black pants like she'd loaned Ezri, and her soft boots. And a hair
clasp at the end of her braid. That was it. She picked up what Ezri
now saw was a knife and tossed it in the air with a sharp flick of her
wrist. It briefly became a whirling fall of silver before she caught
it again, tossed it again--when it landed in her hand this time, it
was only a small black oval.

"Hand is WAY damn quicker than the eye. Check this out." From nowhere
that Ezri could see, three small blurred shapes took to the air,
dancing like big silver snowflakes in a three-way pattern between
Kashi's hands, almost too fast to pick out. "This one, though," Kashi
said casually, belched, and continued "This one's the toughie. Lookee
here." Abruptly one of the shapes shot like a tiny comet the entire
length of the room...and embedded itself in the same duranium door
lintel the knife had just bounced off of.

"Microfine edge," Kashi explained, the black oval joining the other
two small shapes in the figure moving between her hands. "Hell keeping
from slicing my own fingers off with that one. Not quite as fine as
monofilament, but sharp enough to do the job."

"Kashi...you're drunk."

"No indeedy, sweetie, I am not drunk, I am LIT UP like Dakkhur Capital
at Peldor! Yes! You're so *quick!* That's why I like you, you know.
Catch." Ezri's eyes got huge and she ducked instinctively. Kashi only
snickered. "I love the look everybody gets on their face when I say
that."

"Did you forget we were going to the holosuite with Benjamin and
Jake?"

"Yes, by God, I did. I really did. In't that just something." The
little silver shapes stopped whirling and vanished. Once again, Ezri
couldn't be sure where.

She smirked as Kashi slouched over to her and took her earnestly by
the shoulders. "You are so *cute*," she said, and gave Ezri a very
nice continental smooch on both cheeks; where she'd learned that, the
stars alone knew. She then slipped her arms around Ezri's waist and
pulled her so close Ezri made a small grfing noise. "Let's fool
around." The kiss was on the mouth this time.

Desperately trying not to burst out laughing, which laughter at the
moment would likely emerge through Kashi's nose, Ezri maintained their
balance and finally managed to get their mouths separated without
being very forceful about it. "Oh! Romulan ale. You do love the blue
stuff, don't you?"

"I'm so *relaxed*, Ezri!" Kashi abruptly lost interest in Ezri's
physical person, at least for the moment, and pirouetted smoothly
around the room as she spoke. "Do you know how unbelievably *old* it
gets, being wired at high gain every blessed minute of every blessed
day?"

"You mean your enhancements."

"That's right my frippin' damned enhancements. Hey, can you do this?"
Kashi did a quick roll forward and sprang out of it when she rose
again--so high that she sailed over the dining table and landed on a
dime almost directly next to Ezri.

Ezri grinned. "Emony could, but she couldn't get enough momentum from
the roll to spring *that* high. That move'd make a hell of a
dismount."

"It's hell on attackers twice my height, too."

"Dax to Sisko."

"Sisko here."

"Benjamin, we're going to be a little late. Do you want to go ahead
and start without us?"

"How long will you be? We can wait."

"No, go ahead. I just have to have Julian come by Kashi's quarters.
She's picked up a touch of something."

Ezri suddenly found herself being dead-lifted over Kashi's head. "I'd
*like* to touch something, but I'll settle for picking it up," Kashi
smirked.

Ezri controlled a giggle and said "We'll be along as soon as we can."

"We'll see you then. Sisko out."

"Put me down, Kashi."

Instead, Kashi suddenly let her fall--and caught her. "So," she said.
"Where *have* you been all my life?"

Ezri laid her arm along Kashi's shoulders to help support her own
weight; Kashi began a complicated swirling dance around the room with
Ezri in her arms.

"Dax to Bashir."

"Bashir here."

"Are you busy? I'd like you to come by Kashi's quarters with your
kit."

"My kit? Is she all right?"

"It's nothing serious."

"I'm with Julie at the replimat; we were just finishing lunch with
Garak. We'll only be a few moments."

"That's fine. Dax out." Ezri tucked her feet in a little as she was
whirled past a standing lamp and said "Is this the only way you have
of coming down off constant neurological red alert?"

"Neurological, shmurelogical, half of it's trained in. But it's ale or
a punch in the head. Even sleeping won't do it. What good is a
bodyguard that turns off to sleep? You have no *idea*!" She swung Ezri
down feetfirst, still with an arm around her back. "Every sound I
hear. Every slightest movement I see. I still can't walk into a room
without casing it for possible entrances, exits, hiding places, booby
traps, *potential* booby traps--I've nearly killed people with my hair
clasp, whirling around all set to do battle with what turns out to be
some kind of squirrel. Finally had to take the blade off. Do you know
how long it's been since the last time I heard a sudden sound without
getting a load of adrenaline released into my system? That's why I
turned the door signal off."

"The last time you were drunk, I'd imagine. You hide the reactions
well."

"Damn straight I do. Can't shoot for the ceiling every time it
happens. Which only makes it *worse*."

"Yes, I can see that."

Kashi released her, wandering over to sway against the port, laying
her hands flat against it, staring out. "It feels so good," she
sighed, "to know that right now...you could kill me with your bare
hands."

"You must be very tired."

"Very, very, very..." she sagged a little, her head drooping.

Ezri came up and caressed her back gently. Kashi's head jerked
slightly up, and she gasped softly. "Mmmmh," she sighed contentedly.
"I couldn't tell you were coming...I didn't *know* you were going to
touch me...GOD I love ale..."

"I think we'd better talk to Julian about more than the condition of
your ovaries." Ezri kept stroking Kashi's shoulders and back. Kashi
finally turned into Ezri's proffered arms, nuzzling against her
shoulder, letting herself be folded close, sighing.

Jadzia, and Curzon, and most of her other hosts, knew what it was like
to hold someone smaller than themselves, even if only a little
smaller. But to Ezri it was a new sensation, and she found it rather
pleasant, even if she was sad for the someone she was holding. She
stroked the shining black hair, quiet.

In a few minutes, the door hummed open. Ezri looked around; Kashi's
head came up too.

Julian began "Ezri? Why isn't the door--"

"Hey JULES!"

The lion-haired man coming in just behind Julian twitched, eyes
widening.

Suddenly Kashi was no longer in Ezri's arms--when she'd left Ezri
wasn't sure--and a budvase, a small glass sphere, and the black ovoid
Ezri had seen the knife become were flying in smooth arcs toward
Julie.

Eyes huge, movements, for the moment, jerky and abrupt, he caught
them, one at a time, and threw them back. Ezri did another tuck and
roll to get out of their path. One, two, three, they smacked into
Kashi's hands and then went sailing out again the instant they hit.

Back they came again. With Julian's comm badge.

"Hey!" The doctor protested.

When they returned to the now determinedly-scowling Julie's side of
the room, they'd been joined by Kashi's hair clip.

The items began passing each other on their circuit, first in a smooth
oval, then in a more complex oval-and-X, then in, as Ezri began
cooperatively tossing small items to Kashi on request, a complex
bridged arch shape as Julie and Kashi both concentrated, movements
smooth and controlled.

Julie began to move toward Kashi; Kashi grinned and, just as slowly,
began to close the distance from her side. The number of objects
didn't decrease, so the speed at which they were thrown had to
increase if the pattern was to be maintained; faster, faster...

Finally they were no more than a meter and a half apart and the
objects were flying too fast to pick out--

And the budvase shattered against the wall over Kashi's shoulder.

"HA!" Julie shouted as the other seven items all went crashing and
rolling in various directions, ignored by Julie and Kashi and dodged
frantically by Ezri and Julian.

"Bloody *hell*," Julian panted as everything bounced, crumbled or
collapsed to a stop.

"I *told* you not to call me Jules," Julie said triumphantly.

"Got me," Kashi said, picked a decorative metal bowl up off the dining
table and threw up in it.

"Ah," Julie said, eyebrows rising. "Ale again?"

"What the...?" Julian wondered, trying to reach her.

Julie stopped him. "Let her."

Ezri was helping Kashi make it to the bathroom for the rest of the big
purge.

"She's only drunk," Julie explained.

"Drunk?" Julian wondered, brow knitting. "I can sober her up. Or at
least give her something so she won't feel quite so grisly."

"No, don't. Unless you're willing to tranquilize her instead. She
*wants* to feel drunk, and she wants to feel grisly afterward. It's
the only thing that'll numb her enhanced perceptions and her training
to the point she can take some sort of break."

Julian considered. "I thought you were the one with the enhanced
perceptions."

"Mine are enhanced in certain ways, hers in others. It's rather a
misleading way to put it. It's done in large part, though not
completely, though training rather than engineering."

"Um, Julie? Julian?" Ezri's voice. Both men turned.

"A weapon locker's worth of lethal hardware just fell out of Kashi's
hair. Do you know anything about it, either of you?"

"Not directly. But--" Julie bent and picked Kashi's hair clasp up from
its final resting position perched on the edge of the coffee table.
"I'd bet this has something to do with it. She'll need something to
hold her hair back for a bit anyway."

"I think this puts the kibosh on the game," Ezri muttered. "Julian,
would you call Benjamin and tell him Kashi and I have to cancel?"

"Um, certainly. I'd like to talk a moment if you don't mind."

"Julie? Would you...?"

"Why not, it's been a while. At least it's not a bloody vomitorium."
Julie headed for the bathroom.

They both stared after him a moment.

"Do you...know what he...?" Ezri wondered, Julian shaking his head and
saying "Nope, not me, no...listen, there are some things I need to
catch you up on. I'd been going to speak to you earlier, but things in
the infirmary came to a bit of a head."

As they wandered around picking up anything that was still intact and
seeing about cleaning up anything that wasn't, Julian began, speaking
softly. "For one thing, Julie and I...well..."

"I can guess on this one, it's not a big surprise. How'd it go? Is he
all right?"

"He's wonderful, Ezri. No, no, I know what you meant. I mean
he's...he's taking to it like a fish to water."

"You mean the emotional aspects, right?"

"Yes, of course, and...and being able to feel it, himself. Feel
pleasure at being touched. Like we did, I mean, not just in general.
He's not cut off from me, not at all that I can tell." He continued,
giving as much detail as he felt necessary, trying to keep it in
clinical terms.

"That explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Julian...you're glowing."

Julian smiled broadly. "I am?"

"Like a planetary nebula."

"Well then. I daresay I am. That explains why my staff has been
smiling at me so much."

"You know, if you hinted that your stamina is enhanced all the way
around, you could wind up the most popular biped on the station."

"Please keep it under your hat, all right? I'm a bit occupied...then
there's Garak."

Ezri smirked.

Julian saw it and unbent from where he was sweeping up the shattered
budvase. "I saw that. What did that mean?"

"It means Jadzia is more observant than you are about some things."

"You--she--Jadzia--"

"Knew. She was three hundred years old, Julian, give her some credit.
You and Garak--"

"Well yes but that's...that was me and Garak, that's just the way we
act! I didn't know he...he really...he was that..."

"Don't worry; she never told anyone. She was extremely tempted.
Extremely. Especially to tell *you*. But she didn't."

"Well I wish she bloody had."

"No you don't. Not really."

"Do you know what a moron I feel like?! Yes I *do* wish she had!"

"Listen, just tell me how you found out and whether it has anything to
do with Julie."

"It does. *He* lost not an instant telling me. Last night in bed--it
was yesterday Elim came by and saw him--Julie told me he'd seen it as
soon as Garak walked in...and what was more, Garak didn't mind a bit.
He knew that Julie wasn't...well, he was rather the best of both
worlds--me, only not so damned clueless. He knew Julie was as savvy
about that sort of thing as they come. They had a very good time
together, according to Julie, though all Julie got out of it was the
fun of someone else who knows all the ins and outs of the ancient cave
dance, if you see what I mean."

"So he didn't feel a physical response to Garak, though Garak did to
him?"

"Did Garak ever. Julie vamped the daylights out of him. And Garak
LOVED it, according to Julie. Do you have any idea what I felt like
when I heard that? WHY--" he lowered his voice as the sound of a
specially violent heave came from the bathroom. "--didn't Jadzia tell
me?" He sighed and dumped the glass he'd gathered in the disposal
chute. "I can't stand listening to that. I'm going to give her
something to calm her stomach at least."

"I think she'll be happy to take that much," Ezri nodded with a sigh.
"You do know why she got drunk?"

"Julie told me, in brief."

"I can't blame her, or imagine what it must be like to live like that.
But she needs more medical help than just an ova reimplantation
procedure. She needs options, Julian."

"They both do, really. I see what you mean."

"How do you mean *both*?"

"The only way Kashi can escape what was done to her, well, we just saw
it. The only way Julie can escape what was done to him...is me. He
says it's only for me, Ezri. That he'll never want anyone else."

"And you know why that is. He's never been in love before; he doesn't
understand the feelings he's having."

"I'm very afraid it may be more than that...it may be more than that
for me, too."

"Julian...look, go give Kashi her medicine and ask Julie if he'll stay
with her. I think you need to have a little reality blown up your
various orifices."

"I had to open my mouth."

---

"Come here, Keiko, give me your--"

"Ishi--" *hic* "--kawa, dammit, if I'm calling you Julian."

"Use Julie, it'll avoid confusion. Just not in front of anybody but
Julian or Ezri, all right?"

"Okay," Kashi said very softly.

Then, also very softly, as he swabbed her front down with his
cloth--her pants had been spared and her hair stayed back long enough
for him to snatch it partly into the clamp again--she added "Kashi."

"I thought that was for friends."

"Dammit, Julie, you were the only friend I had!"

He hauled her roughly to her feet. "Come on, Julian said that hypo was
going to make you dizzy." He picked her up, sort of on his hip as one
might carry a child, and took her out into the bedroom, where he sat
her on the bed and let her fall backward. "Where are you hiding that
ale?"

"The pitcher's in the replicator," she slurred.

When he came back in, she had tears leaking down the sides of her
face, but she was calm.

"How I hate a maudlin drunk," Julie growled, poured himself a generous
slug of blue liquid and knocked it back.

She suddenly sat up, swaying only a little. "I'm not *maudlin*, I'm
MAD! Why the *hell* didn't you tell me you were alive? You're all
self-righteous and how-could-you-abandon-me and I'm-so-hurt, but you
didn't even care enough to hunt up my sorry ass and demand an
explanation! You just--you just let me think--Julie, I cried for two
days straight! I hated myself! I hated you, I hated everything!" Kashi
finished, jumping to her feet and screaming the last part in his face.

He looked a touch disconcerted, but didn't allow it to affect his
posture. "*You*," he reminded her, "left *me* for dead. It was hardly
*my* part to go running after you, for reassurances or any other
blasted reason!"

"Couldn't you have given me a chance?"

"No, I couldn't. You cried for two days. Do you know what my life
among the dissidents was like without you? Without anyone, for months,
years? All of them knowing precisely what I'd been? Just what the
*bloody* hell happened to *you*, at that? Where were *you*
between--that day, and the first day I saw your comm transmission
aboard Sisko's ship?"

"I was--" she broke off and turned away. Julie poured more ale. "I
was..." she sat down on the bed again. Her hair was coming out of the
rough gathering job Julie had done on it, tangling with itself and the
clip, loops and swirls of shining black cascading around her small
smooth body.

"You never tried to find me, did you?"

"That's not fair!"

"Oh, but I think it is, my fine free-trading friend." Julie dropped to
one knee next to her; she continued facing away from him; he spoke
harshly into her ear. "You were a *power*. I was nothing but an
abused, half-witted child."

"I had," she whispered, "to be able to rely on you. I needed you. To
plant those charges. To..."

"I needed you far worse. But when I came to the end of my usefulness,
well, easy enough to discard an idiot whore like me, correct?"

"No." She turned her head, her voice hard as she locked eyes with him.
"I have something to tell you, you bastard. I wanted to take care of
you for the rest of our lives. I wished you were my brother. I wished
you were mine. And when I thought you hadn't made it out, that I'd
told you the settings or the positioning wrong, I wished I was dead.
How's that grab you, you--"

"I have something to tell *you*. When I thought I hadn't made it out,
that you'd told me the settings or the positioning wrong, I wished you
were dead, too."

"But you DID make it OUT or you'd never have known that I cleared the
yard before the lockdown!"

"Oh, I made it out, on Erret's back, as I said. Then he died on the
transport. Kolya--remember Kolya? Kolya caught the impulse signature
of the only armed escort ship that hadn't been sabotaged leaving
atmosphere just as we were taking off. And that, as you say, is when I
knew you'd made it. I was happy. I was bloody damned HAPPY! I was
sure--" he broke off, horrified at himself, at the sound of his voice
breaking, the tears rushing to his eyes. "I was sure you'd find me. I
never dreamed you'd just...*leave* me. You were everything I wasn't,
you could do anything, anything you wanted to--"

"I was only *human*, just like you!"

"Not to ME you weren't! To me you were everything I could even hope
for! You were--" he dragged in a breath and obviously realized he'd
never be able to keep talking without breaking down, but managed to
push out: "--everything I wanted to be. I loved you."

"I loved you too! But I never knew you felt that way, you'd barely
speak to me!"

"You don't know what they did to me."

"No, maybe not, or what you'd been through the last two years while I
was still at the compound. But how *was* I to know? Do you think they
*told* us? And has it ever occurred to you that a child being trained
to be a merciless fighter might have gone through her own brand of
inhuman treatment during the training? Of being made to feel like an
animal, a nothing? Do you really think you're the only one who
suffered, just because after the training I got to wear weapons and
walk patrols and run security and--"

"While *I* was in his God-bloody rotting BED!"

The thunderous shout left silence ringing in the room.

He turned back to the pitcher on the table by the door and poured
another glass, tossing it back as quickly as the others.

She rose slowly, pacing toward the port. She touched it with her
fingertips and turned back just slightly, not quite far enough to see
him. After a moment, she murmured "Is that it, then? It comes down to
that?"

"Isn't that enough?"

Her head bowed. "Then there's nothing I can do." Her hair curtained
her face, long twisted ropes of it falling like thick black satin
pull-cords over her gold skin. Tears dripped to the floor, crystalline
in the starlight.

"You're leaving me again," he whispered. "You're giving up on me
again."

"I don't want to!" she screamed, her face contorting. "I don't! You
won't have me! Nothing I do will ever change what either of us went
through, or what happened the day we escaped! Or am I wrong?" her eyes
widened again, and she wiped frantically at her face, shoving her hair
back with shaking hands, swaying with weakness. "Tell me, then, come
on, if you know just who's been hurt and who had power and who can
take action and who's going to make you real to yourself again, tell
me how! Tell me what to do! Tell me! TELL ME!"

"Kashi--"

She bared her teeth and launched herself at him.

---

"What do you think that juggling was all about?"

"I think it's obviously something they did as children, working with
their various versions of physical augmentation. You can do that,
can't you?"

"I could. I'm out of practice. With Jadzia...when was that...no, the
last time I tried was with Miles and we were killing time waiting for
the King of Leinster to arrive for the celebration banquet. We were
using torches and we set some thatching on fire."

"You never juggled torches with Jadzia."

"There was drink involved."

"I see. Well, if you're going to get drunk and burn things, the
holosuite is the place to do it. Men and their rituals. Why don't you
two just be like everyone else and use big sloppy kisses to show how
much you like each other?"

"I did kiss him once. I thought he was going to faint. But we're here
because you think I need a reality dosage..." I grinned at her grimace
of annoyance. "I'll tell you when you tell me what else happened when
you were nestled in Leeta's valley of interest the other night."

"Julian. I know about you and Julie. And I know Benjamin doesn't."

"You wouldn't stoop that...oh, all right. It was Miles's birthday, and
he blew out his candles, and Keiko kissed him, and Molly kissed him,
and Yoshi kissed him, and his assistant Raela kissed him, and Leeta
kissed him...but I happened to be standing just ahead of Leeta. For a
second he didn't quite realize I'd done it, I stepped in on the tick
so precisely. He might never have known if Keiko hadn't screamed all
at once before she began laughing."

"Was it on the mouth?" she grinned.

"Soft and sweet."

"He didn't hit you?"

"He stared. Then he laughed. Then he dumped his ale on me. Can we get
on with this? I'm afraid Julie might take advantage of Kashi's
weakened state to do her an injury. Especially if she calls him
'Jules' again."

"Right, well..." We emerged onto the second level of the Promenade and
continued strolling slowly down it. Ezri reached out and let her hand
trail the edge of a port while she spoke; she folded her other arm
through mine. "You...believe you love Julie. All right, you love him,
I'll buy that, it makes sense, but you believe you're in love with
him, correct?"

"Ezri...in my life I have loved very few people sincerely; at this
late date I've begun to realize that. I loved Jadzia, and I think I
could have been happy with her, if she could ever have been happy with
me. But she's the only one I can be certain...was really the sort of
love we're talking about here. I love you." I squeezed her hand on my
arm. "Gods know I love Miles, and his family. Just now I don't really
want to think about that word in conjunction with Garak; I think
that's going to need its own session, save me some time. Even, really,
sometimes, I think what I feel for Captain Sisko could be called love.
But *none* of them are the same, Ezri, love is different with each
person you feel it for. Even things that are supposed to be the same
*kind* of love, do you follow me? It's just not that easy for me to
tell you."

"Actually, Julian, that's a very mature insight. You're right, that
sort of categorization is fairly pointless. Which means I'm going to
have to rephrase, I guess. How do you feel when you think about the
fact that Julie--" she sharpened her voice just slightly, "--is going
to have to leave, and soon, and you aren't ever going to see him
again, barring some kind of catastrophe?"

I stopped walking.

"Take your time," she said.

"I don't need to. I thought my heart was going to tear loose. I want
to turn around and run back to him right now. I'm thinking about
resigning my commission all of a sudden."

"You're in love," Ezri sighed in resignation. "Terrific."

"I really am," I whispered.

She tugged my arm gently and we kept walking. After a moment, she said
quietly "Do you think he's really in love with you? Obviously he
believes he is, but do you think you can trust that any more than any
other first mature love?"

"Sometimes...it doesn't matter that it's the first, does it? It can
still be...real."

"Yes, real, but final? The *only* love of one's life? It's not that
way for most humanoid species, with certain notable exceptions like
the Vulcans, but they get mind-bonded."

"Bolians."

"You want to find a woman to marry Julie with?"

"I see your point. I think...all right, *did* you have a point?"

"That he may...come to see what he feels for you now as being
childish. That you were there at a time in his life when he
desperately needed someone to trust, to help him become as much of a
whole person as he has any hope of being. Maybe it's what we suspected
with him, Julian, and what you've been trying to tell him it is."

"Unsuccessfully."

"So far. Barely any time has passed. You know how long situations like
that can take to run their courses."

"I'm still not sure I see your..."

"Julian." She stopped me and I faced her, waiting.

"You...have a history of grand gestures. All right, not gestures,
grand...grand actions. Heroic, romantic actions. For you, that's real.
It's the way you operate, the way you are, it's not artificial with
you the way it would be with some people. You live those dreams."

"I don't know quite what to say..."

"Say this. That you will *come* *to* *me* before you decide to take
any drastic actions, and you *know* what sort of actions I mean. Or
you will know, when one occurs to you. You will. Promise me."

I was quiet a moment, wondering if I would regret acquiescence.

"Please, Julian. When a man like you is really in love, in what can
only be a star-crossed relationship--"

"Groan."

"--there's no telling what might happen."

I lowered my head, eyes closing. "I promise, Ezri."

"I do have one thing to be thankful for."

"What's that?"

We continued strolling. "That it isn't you and Kira who are in love.
This place would go up in flames. You live those dreams--she *is* the
dreams."

"Another dashing romantic figure," I chuckled.

"That's her. The hilarious thing is that she thinks she's a complete
pragmatist."

"From her point of view, she is. She's perfectly pragmatic about
reality as she sees it."

"And you love the dreams."

"Perhaps it's only that I'm capable of seeing one dream at a time," I
smiled. She smiled back. "I've been meaning to ask you something," I
continued. "Not that I want to take much longer at this, but Kashi
talks about having a temper. Could something like that be engineered?"

"I think it would take both of us to answer *that* question, or maybe
a psychiatric surgeon, though probably they wouldn't have the
expertise in genetics...why do you ask?"

"Because Keiko hasn't much of one at all. I'm not sure I've ever heard
her raise her voice. For that matter, *Kashi* doesn't seem to have
one. I haven't seen her angry once yet."

"But you have seen her act, haven't you?"

"How do you mean?"

"She calls it a temper, but what I think she means is...hotheadedness.
She means that she acts without thinking, and she definitely does do
that. It's programmed into her to take immediate action against any
sort of perceived threat."

"Genetically programmed?"

"I doubt it. Behavior patterns aren't hard to condition in, especially
in children. While I really hate to think *how* it was done--what was
done to her to make her like that--I do know that it would be very
easy to do."

"Oh...that explains why Julie might be so sure she took off without
waiting for him. She...might really have."

"No, I'd lay any odds you want that she didn't. She would have been
trying to protect *Julie*, not herself; her own safety would have been
second or even lower on the hierarchy of responses they'd have trained
into her. She'd never have left unless she was sure he was dead."

"Speaking of all that, we'd better get back to them. Lord only knows
what's happening."

"Not much, I'd think. Kashi's pretty whacked."

"In which condition she still managed to juggle eight highly
dissimilar objects with a partner. I suppose being drunk is why she
missed the budvase."

She suddenly reached up to my neck. "What's--oh. Julie bites?"

I swatted her hand and glanced furtively around. "I must have missed
that one with the regenerator. Yes, he bites, and I need to remember
to thank him for helping me discover that I like it."

She snickered as we started back to the habitat ring.

---

"I think you'd better wait here, Julian, Kashi may be more seriously
indisposed than just topless by this ti--uh, oh." She advanced into
the room. I saw her concern then--the ale pitcher was broken on the
floor, surrounded by blue fluid.

"Oh, no," I sighed.

She was peering into the bedroom; I came up and looked over her
shoulder.

Amidst general chaos and disorganization were Kashi and Julie. Kashi
was sitting in the floor by an overturned table; Julie was curled up
on her, his head resting on her breast. They were both so wrapped in
the gleaming black pelt of her hair it was difficult to be sure, but
he seemed to be asleep. Kashi was humming something quietly, rocking
slowly back and forth.

"Kashi?" Ezri said quietly. "Are you both okay?"

Kashi looked up. Even through her hair I could see the wetness on her
face and the gleaming of the swollen flesh around her eye. She looked
back down toward Julie, murmuring something softly. Ezri approached
them and gently began to sweep Kashi's hair back.

"You've been fighting," Ezri observed, rather unnecessarily.

"Please help him," Kashi whispered. "I hurt him..."

"You're hurt too," Ezri said as I knelt to look at Julie.

"He's unconscious," I said, "put him down, Kashi."

She shook her head and pulled him against her more tightly.

"We won't hurt him," Ezri said softly. "You asked us to help. It's all
right. Let me take a look at you while Julian sees about Julie."

Finally, very slowly, Kashi began to relax her arms. "It'll be all
right," she whispered to Julie as she let me lie him out on the
carpet. She stroked his face and hair protectively, possessively.
"It'll be all right, I promise."

I got my kit, which was still in the front room; Julie had a minor
cerebral contusion. "It's not serious. He shouldn't even be...ah." I'd
got a chance to smell him. "He's drunk, too, I think."

"I hurt him," Kashi whimpered, and sobbed.

"No, no worse than he hurt you," I told her. "In fact likely not as
bad. Did he fall on something?"

"I hit him."

"You knocked him out? With your fist?"

She nodded again, miserably.

Ezri was running her hands gently over Kashi's small ribcage; she said
"You'll want to scan her, but I don't find anything on her but that
black eye. Are you hurt anywhere else, Kashi?"

She just sat there gazing sorrowfully at Julie.

Ezri sat her up on the bed and pulled her boots off as I was taking
care of Julie's head. I gave him a final shot to take care of any
discomfort he might feel on waking and looked up at them. Kashi was
saying "I wanted to help him so bad. I was *there* sometimes, I was
Leveren's bodyguard. He never cried. He never made a sound unless
someone told him to. He always did what they told him. So did I...oh,
Ezri, do you know what it was like to *defend* the man who--who was--"

"Shh," Ezri murmured, putting an arm around her and stroking her.
"Julie's going to be fine."

"How can he ever forgive me? I wanted to--I wanted to do something,
anything, I could have killed Leveren any time, broke his neck with
one chop, I could have kept him from ever touching Julie again. There
were a million times I could just have walked up and *stopped* it! But
I didn't!"

"You wouldn't have stopped it long," Ezri said, "and they'd only have
stopped *you*. Killed you, maybe. Maybe Julie too, just to make a
point. Or, if you didn't actually kill Leveren, they might have
punished you instead by hurting *Julie*, once you showed how much you
cared about him. It would only have made things worse for him."

"You don't understand. It doesn't matter. At least he would have known
someone cared about him if I'd done *something*."

"You told him you cared, didn't you?"

"Not enough. I didn't try hard enough to get through to him. I wanted
him to...have something to think about, to be able to concentrate on
the fact that someone in his life loved him, even if she was powerless
to help him, have that to think of while they were...doing whatever
they were doing with him, or he was doing with them."

"It wasn't that bad, Kashi." I looked down; Julie's eyes were open. He
reached up to my shoulder and I helped him sit.

She stared at him.

"It wasn't good, no. But...the occasions you were present were the
exception. Usually it was only him. In fact I learned to think of
being only with him as something of a relief."

"It wasn't always only him. Julie--I *delivered* you to those damned
stinking Klingon maggots *myself*!"

He looked away, unable to answer. I knew what he was thinking; she was
right. Some things were impossible to completely forgive, even though
he knew none of it had been her fault or doing. She didn't enjoy her
privileged position; she'd have left it, and taken him, if she could.
But because she was there--simply standing by--when it was happening,
he didn't have it in him to defend her.

I did, though. "Kashi, you were only a child as well, for all
practical purposes. You were a slave. You knew nothing but
obedience--and the threat of horrific punishment for disobedience. You
knew there was nothing you could do for Julie; it's as Ezri said.
Trying to help him would only have hurt him."

"I could have told him--I could have--"

"You tried, Kashi." Julie sighed. "I couldn't hear you. I couldn't
hear anything at all. I couldn't have felt your love anyway." He
paused. "I was...numb."

I started for Kashi with the intention of treating her eye, but she
batted me away. "Leave it."

"It'll only take a--"

"Leave it."

"Leave it, Julian," Ezri echoed her, kissed her cheek and stood up.
"Come on."

"Are you su--" Ezri didn't bother answering me; she just took my arm
and steered me out of the room. She tapped the switch to allow the
door to close as we left.

---

"Are you okay?" Kashi asked softly after a moment.

He nodded, licked his lips and took a breath, then sighed, letting his
head fall, and said "'When the hurt done is contrary to expectation,
it is an accident.'"

"Thanks. I can't blame you either," Kashi sighed. She pulled her hair
close around her as though it were a blanket, holding herself in it.
There was a long silence.

"Ever cut it?" he asked.

She half-smiled. "No. You did at least once, though, it looks like."

"I caught some sort of fever. They cut it off then."

"What did you have?"

"They never figured it out. All they could do was keep me as
comfortable as they could." He looked distant. "I dreamt of you then,"
he said.

"Of all of it, I guess you mean."

"Some. But about you, too. I thought you were there, a few times. That
you'd finally come for me."

Kashi let her head fall. Her jaw tightened and her throat spasmed
against a sob. "Why didn't you tell me? I'd have come. I swear I'd
have come if I'd known you were alive. Even if I thought you'd kill me
for leaving you, I'd still have come."

He was quiet, then got up unsteadily and got to the bed next to her.
"I didn't want to see you. It hurt so much, Kay," he admitted softly.

"It still hurts, doesn't it," she whispered.

"Yes. But...don't go again. I don't know...if I can ever completely
forgive...you, or anyone, anything about then. Will you stay anyway?
Even if it hurts?"

"I'll always be there for you, while you want me," she said huskily,
and raised her arms to him, pulling him down to her. Somehow, despite
their extreme size discrepancy, she got him cuddled against her again,
lying half in her lap. The ale probably helped.

He nuzzled against her artlessly, eyes open, unseeing. "You used to do
this," he realized. "At the compound, before Leveren took me. I'd
forgotten."

"You forgot that?"

He fought for words for a moment, then sighed in resignation and said
"'This having learned, thou hast attained the sum of wisdom; hope no
higher.'"

She nodded after a moment. "I think you're selling yourself short, but
I know what you mean. Even things I wanted to remember, I had to
forget, if I was going to be able to forget what I wanted to. You
know?"

"Yes."

They were quiet a moment. She began, unthinking, to rock again,
slowly, back and forth.

"We fit together a little better, when you held me then," he said, and
managed to smile.

So did she, wiping a trickle of blood from a split in the bruise on
her face. "Was I any bigger then, or were you just smaller?"

"Both, maybe," he chuckled. "And you didn't have these." He nuzzled
her breast again.

"They an improvement?"

He was quiet, then said in a small voice, as though honestly thinking
about it--he was unlikely ever to have considered whether he *liked*
anything about a given body portion, it wasn't as though anyone had
ever cared about his opinion but Jadzia-- "Well...I like them. They're
soft." Then he was quiet. Slowly, his breathing evened and deepened
again.

She lay back against the pillows with him, her eyes unfocusing,
finally drooping closed. she sang almost inaudibly. "'Gonna dry your
tears...gonna wash away your fears, now--Rock-a-bye...rock-a-bye...'"

---
FIFTEEN:
"Bend me, shake me, any way you want me, long as you love me,
it's all right..."

Various
---

Ezri and I hovered in the front room a moment. "We shouldn't leave
them completely," I said. "For one thing, they may be hurt worse than
they let on."

"I know," she said. "Help me clean this up."

We were quiet, tidying the room yet again.

Finally we sat down and continued to be quiet, both of us thinking
furiously, until Ezri eventually said "You should tell Benjamin about
you and Julie."

"I can't. He'd put his foot down. I can't do anything that
might...make him cut short Julie's therapy."

"And when you've spent as much time with him as you can finagle, what
then? I told you already. No matter how long you're with him, it's not
going to be long enough. What will you do when it's time to say
goodbye?"

There was a pause, and I murmured "I can't imagine doing that. Rather,
I can, and I hate the idea passionately."

"Then you'd better start considering your options."

"What options? I can't stay with him and I can't let him go. What
options could there be?"

"I don't know that yet, but we'd better see if we can't come up with
some, or you and Julie are both in for a pretty rough time."

"We're in for a rough time no matter what."

"Well, I wasn't going to come right out and say it, but yes. Listen,
I'm the counselor here, and soon--possibly the next time I see
him--Benjamin is going to start asking me detailed questions about
Julie's case. Benjamin's my best friend as well as my CO, Julian. I
won't lie to him."

I sighed.

Eventually she got up and touched the bedroom door switch, staying
back from it for a moment. "Kashi?"

No response; she glanced into the room, then looked back toward me. I
came up to join her.

Kashi was holding him to her bosom again, but they were lying down;
Kashi was propped on the pillows. Julie seemed to be out again, simply
asleep this time. Kashi wasn't much closer to consciousness, stroking
his hair mindlessly, her eyes closed, as a nearly inaudible melody, it
sounded like the one she'd been singing before, whispered from her
slightly puffy lips.

"What do you think?" I murmured low near Ezri's ear.

She sighed. "It's a start," she said quietly. "Come on, they should be
all right for a while. I'll come by in a few hours to check on them."

"I'll come with you."

We were quiet, absorbed in our thoughts, until we parted company at
the habitat ring. I stepped through the door of my quarters to the
unexpected sight of Miles on his knees on my desk, trying to get an
arm under the terminal into the lower body of the computer. "'Lo,
Julian."

"Hello, Miles. Forget something?"

"Lost it, more like. Tool fell through the support grid, this is the
first chance I've had to come back and--there it is. Come on,
y'little..." he trailed off, groping around at the limit of his reach,
his face twisted in concentration.

"Can I help?"

"Hold on to me somewhere, I nearly get it and then have to let go
before I overbalance myself. It's caught under something..."

I moved up next to him and settled my hands on his waist. "Like this?"

"Okay, I'm going to pull, I think I've got it. If it doesn't come free
at once, give a tug."

A heartbeat later, lying in the floor with Miles sitting on my stomach
and no air in me to speak of, I still managed to squeak in a painful
falsetto "You're too big a boy to sit in Uncle Julian's lap, Miles."

"Sorry." He rolled off me, examining the tiny tool he was holding.
"Bloody. We broke it."

"Who's we, you clumsy Celt? You had hold of it."

He got up and gave me a hand to my feet. "Oh, well. Isn't that
important. I'm here as much to ask how it's going, anyway. With your
friend. You."

"How's things with Kashi?"

"She's trying to steal my wife from me, but other than that she seems
like a great person. Which figures. She's Keiko. Got a bit of a wicked
streak in her, though. Let me walk in on her and Keiko in the tub."

"Her and Keiko in the tub?"

"When they're together, they don't uncouple even long enough to answer
nature's call."

"Well, *that*'s close, all right. Kashi seems to be a very big fan of
the female gender. In a few days she's charmed every woman on the
station that I've ever tried to, and succeeded in it even where I've
failed. Even Ezri, who's trying to be professional, is obviously taken
with her."

"Yes, there's something about her that makes women smile--men too, for
that matter-- where whatever it is in you makes them snicker. Definite
bird dog, she is. Wish she could stay longer, she's..." he tossed the
defunct tool in the disposal chute. "...really interesting."

"You think she's attractive, don't you."

"Give me a break, how could I avoid it? Look who she is."

"True enough," I chuckled. "As for Julie..." I sighed.

"Julie?"

"That's what I call him."

"*Julie*? Him?"

"Don't tell anybody. He'd put me through the floor."

"I can see that. This place is a disaster."

"Oh, we weren't fighting. Not really."

"Then is this your idea of redecorating?"

"You remember the night of Luma's party, when Keiko came in and found
you and me chasing one another around the living room set?"

Miles chuckled. "Barely."

"We were doing that."

"That? He doesn't seem the type for it."

"You don't know him the way I do, Miles." I sighed.

"Uh, oh. You've got the wistful expression."

"The what?"

"That young-gondolier-in-love, no-mountain-high-enough,
hell-and-high-water-for-the-sake-of-this-grand-passion, *wistful*
look. You know the one. No one does it as well as you."

"I simply must spend more time with people who don't know me so well."

"Want to explain?"

"Nothing really to explain. Julie and I are in love."

"WHAT?!"

"Something told me you were going to say that."

"With HIM?"

"Yes, with him. Let's see: No, I'm not out of my mind. Yes, I do know
the sort of trouble this could get me in. And yes, I'm sure how I
feel. I'm sure how he feels, too."

Stymied, Miles spluttered. Julian went to him and took his shoulders.
"I know I can't expect you to be exactly happy for me, under the
circumstances, Miles," he said. "Can I at least expect you to be
supportive?"

"Don't be stupid, of course you can expect *that*. Who do you think
you're dealing with?"

"You have a point," I grinned, and let him go.

"Does the Captain know?"

"Not yet. And I'd like to be the one to tell him, please, Miles."

"Hey, nobody'll hear it from me. Come on down to Quark's with me,
f'you've got a few minutes. Catch me up on all your adventures in
Mirrorland. And tell me about your...um, your Julie."

"Sure."

We drank raktajino and chatted, and Miles rolled his eyes at me a few
times, until I realized it was time to meet Ezri in Kashi's quarters;
I excused myself, and encountered Ezri in the corridor just outside
Kashi's door. "If they're awake, I hope they found that hangover
remedy we left out for them," she said by way of greeting.

"If they haven't, we'll know it pretty quickly," I agreed, and touched
the door switch.

We were assaulted by a burst of sound that made Ezri take a shocked
step back, bumping into me. "What the hell?" she yelled over the
noise, which I realized at that point was music of some sort. It even
had English lyrics, if you could call them lyrics. "'BEND me SHAKE me
AAANy WAY you WANT me, LONG as you LOVE me, IT'S all RIIIIGHT..."

"I think it's music," I yelled back.

At that point, Julie and Kashi appeared from the bedroom, with a
vengeance. Kashi was still in her black trousers and her unbound hair.
Julie had lost his shirt at some point.

"Aren't those the teal pants from that outfit Jadzia bought you on
Casperia Prime?" Ezri wondered.

Kashi was in the act of throwing something. Julie was in the act of
running away and dodging, trying to balance a bowl he had in his hand.
Whatever was in Kashi's missed Julie and splatted into the wall.

"Is that mashed potatoes?" Ezri wondered.

Julie countered with a handful of green beans, then scooped the mashed
potatoes off the wall and threw them directly into my face. Both of
them screamed in glee and bolted back into the bedroom. Stray bits of
food continued to shoot from the open bedroom door.

"Guess they got hungry," Ezri said, and reached up, grinning, to wipe
some of the potato out of my hair. "Y'know, Julian," she mused as I
sighed, "It's never too late to have a happy childhood. C'mon, let's
blow this popsicle stand."

"What?"

"Let's leave them to it!"

"Are you sure?"

"They know they can call us if they need us."

"True. All right then, we'll let them run wild for a while. Would you
grab me one of those napkins?"

---

I was awakened by someone climbing in bed with me, someone who smelled
of cereus. "Mm," I muttered, blinking. "Hello, sweetheart." My hand
shot up, grabbed the pillow and walloped him over the head with it,
knocking him onto the floor. I peeked over the edge; he was lying on
his back, propped on his elbows, giving me a wry look. "Touch?," he
said.

"Come on," I chuckled. "Don't be afraid, we're even now." I gave him a
hand up. "Heavens, your hair's a disaster. I mean, it's beautiful, but
is there any other reason you keep it so long? Mine's a pain when it
gets lower than my collar."

"Yes, there is. They kept us pretty much hairless at the compound."

"They did? Why?"

"Some sort of hygienic reason is what we were told; I think mostly it
had to do with taking away our identity. They dressed us all alike,
too." We got rearranged.

"That explains Kashi's. How are you two getting on now?"

"Um..."

"It's all right, you needn't fluff it up for me. I know it's complex."

"I think...if we--if we work enough at it..."

"Yes, there will be some work involved. I'm glad you have that much of
an understanding together, though."

"Don't get smug."

"I'm not smug. I'm happy for you."

He sighed. "I know...I'm sorry."

"It's all right. I'm not that fragile, if you haven't noticed by now."

"Why do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Let me talk to you the way I do."

"Because I know why you do it. It keeps people away. Keeps you from
getting distracted. Maybe you don't want to keep me away any more, but
you don't really know any other way to relate to people."

"You nearly drove me insane. So bloody *understanding*. I wanted to
kill you."

"I didn't mean to be so patronizing. But if it makes you feel better,
*everybody* thinks I'm arrogant."

"Everybody's right."

"Sometimes, yes..."

He yawned and curled up against my shoulder; I kissed his head and
began to drop off again, too.

"But I love you anyway," he whispered.

"I love you too, Julie."

"What are we going to do?" he murmured.

I was quiet a moment, then whispered "I don't know yet, sweetheart.
We'll think of something."

"You can't come back with me. Your people wouldn't let you."

"Any more than they'd let you stay. There has to be some way to...to
convince them, or...well...my family has a tradition of getting around
laws it doesn't like. We may have to resort to that, if...Julie." He
looked up at me; I licked my lips and said with difficulty, "Would
you...*are* you willing to stay here with me, if you can?"

"My people need me. I can't abandon them, you know that." He looked
away. "I have to keep telling myself that. Julian...I don't know how
I'd manage to live with myself, but I'd stay if you asked me to. I
don't want to be alone any more. And you're the only one I'll ever
love like this."

"Julie..." I held him close. Such a damned mess this was. "I don't
want to ask that of you, but right now...I can't see anything else to
do. We have some time. There are people I can talk to, there may be
some solution we can't see. We'll come up with something. We have to."

---

continued in part four