The BLTS Archive- Circle in The sand by Tyrael --- Many thanks to Karen and Sascha for reading the story and to Giorgia for her precious suggestions. A special thank you to Carolyn Fulton for lending a line from her masterpiece "Changed Perceptions". --- Kira Nerys looked out of the open veranda of her house in Dakhur Province and smiled wistfully. Eight years before she would have rejoiced of her actual position: promoted to colonel two years before, she'd been commander of Deep Space 9 for one and had a brilliant career in front of her. But she definitely wasn't the same Kira Nerys anymore. Seven years on DS9 had changed her in ways that the Resistance could not. Sometimes she mused her life had really begun the very day she was assigned to the station by a government who simply didn't like her attitude. The thing she could most vividly remember from those first days was her anger. Anger towards the Cardassians, finally beaten after sixty years of occupation; anger towards the Bajoran politicians who seemed to be uninterested in the future of their planet. With the wisdom one shows only by judging past things, she knew her anger was directed to the entire universe for the losses she had to endure during those hard times: her parents, her brothers, her friends, her people. But she had managed to get past that anger. She had to be grateful to Bareil for that, and deep in her heart she knew that she would never forget how important he'd been for her. The sun was beginning to set down and a cool breeze started to caress her face. She decided to take a stroll along the small lake that lay not so distant from her family house. She remembered her father telling her and her two brothers how he used to play on that shore when he was a little child, not so long before the Cardassians had brought the hell to Bajor. For a fleeting, terrifying moment she thought that probably she would never see her own children playing there. She stopped in her track and looked at the small waves rippling the surface of the lake. The water was taking on a deep shade of gold and she found herself thrown back in time. A year before she had left the man she loved with all her pagh on the verge of a different lake and it seemed to her that every chance for happiness had died that day, on another shore, light years away from her homeland. She suddenly remembered the first and only time she had brought Odo to this place. They weren't on vacation - just spending some spare time on Bajor after a meeting with the Government to update the ministers on the war effort. He seemed truly impressed by the beauty of the place and told her she was very lucky to own a small part of paradise like that. She knew he appreciated the simple things that surrounded them: the small house, the lake, the forest and the hills around them. She remembered telling him that she would have liked to come back after the war and spend some time there with him. She could tell he was pleased. She knew that sometimes he still had troubles believing that what they were sharing was true and real. From a being which had been so often betrayed by life, no one would expect nothing less than suspicion. But, nonetheless, he cherished their love and every moment they could spend together. She picked up a stick that was laying on the shore and, smiling fondly, drew the figure of a circle in the sand, just the way he had done then. "You and I are the two halves of the same thing... I begin where you end and where I end you begin -- our love is neverending, as this circle is." A tear run free on her cheek. How could life be possible without him? How could she go on living without the only being in this universe that made her complete? Then, suddenly, memories of their last trip together gave her strenght. Now she remembered: back on the runabout he'd said something that made the loss of him easier to bear. "I believe that one day we will be together again. I don't know if this will happen in this life, but I know that the day that I'll die, I'll come straight to the doors of the Celestial Temple and ask the Prophets to let me in and then we'll be as one again, through eternity." With the last ray of sunlight reflecting on the lake, Kira Nerys felt her pagh open to the future for the first time. Whether it was this life or another one, it mattered little. He had promised he would join her again and her faith in him was just as big as the one she had in the Prophets. *The Prophets call us to wholeness*. The wind raised stronger this time, but she didn't care: her certainty protected her like a shield and she felt the need to speak the words aloud, though no one was there to listen. "We'll meet again, my love, and our circle will be complete." --- The End