The BLTS Archive - Five Things That Never Happened to Odo
by C.Zdroj(czb@comcast.net)

---

DISCLAIMER: Paramount owns the DS9 universe and characters. No
copyright infringement is intended here. Please ask before re-posting
or republishing.

ARCHIVING: ASC, BLTS, Bajorarama. Others please ask.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I have no idea who started this particular challenge
format, but I think it's a wonderful device for exploring AU
scenarios. One or two of these scenes might very well grow into
full-length stories at some future time. You have been warned. :-)

---
Alternate Reality I
---

"You know, shapeshifter," purred Dukat. "I thought you were
incorruptible. So alien from anything humanoid that you would be ...
uncontaminated by the impulses of the flesh."

"I don't know what you're trying to imply."

Dukat's gaze leveled abruptly with Odo's. "Did you think I wouldn't
notice the way you were looking at her?"

Kira Nerys. Odo knew that the immediate look of recognition on his
face had already betrayed him. Dukat smiled. "Do you really imagine
that a girl like that could have ... feelings for someone--for
something--like you?"

Odo straightened his shoulders and glared at the Cardassian prefect.
"I don't know what you think you saw out there, Gul Dukat--perhaps
your own desires color your vision--but I assure you that I have no
sexual interest in that young woman or anyone else on this station."

"Kira Nerys is off the station now, thanks to you," said Dukat, almost
casually. "She's guilty, of course, but we can let that pass."

Odo was a little taken aback. Dukat's mind games had been thus far
transparent, but now he wasn't certain where their conversation was
leading. Dukat smiled his most predatory smile, then at the look of
bewilderment on Odo's face, feigned surprise. "You don't mean to say
that you believed her little tale, did you? I suppose that's to be
expected; you're new to such matters. Well, well ... an honest
mistake, then. In that case, I believe I can find more work for you."

"What makes you think that I'm going to do any more of your dirty
work?"

Dukat stood for the first time. The action had exactly the effect
intended, and Odo had to steel himself to avoid flinching. "Because as
much as you try to pretend otherwise, shapeshifter, you are a man of
compassion. That is your weakness. A good military strategist knows
how to exploit weakness. I now know who Kira Nerys is. I know what
resistance cell she belongs to, and I know where to find them. I mean
to make you my chief of security; you'll do well in that post--and the
Bajorans will trust you. But if you give me any reason to ... doubt
your loyalty to me, then I will make it my business to look up your
little friend and her resistance cell. Is all of that clear to you?"

Odo's eyes glittered with rage, but the rest of his body gave away
nothing.

"Perfectly clear, Gul Dukat," he said

The Cardassian seated himself and smiled again. "Good. I knew you were
the perfect man for this job."

---
Alternate Reality II
---

She frowned into the mirror. "What do you make of him?"

He did not have to ask who she meant. They were both in the process of
evaluating the new Starfleet station commander. Odo allowed himself to
consider the question as his hands came to rest on Kira's bare
shoulders.

After a moment, he said: "Not what I would've expected."

Her gaze, reflected in the mirror, became shrewd and assessing, and
she surveyed Odo's features in the polished glass before actually
glancing up at him. "Is that good or is that bad?"

"I'm not sure yet. I've decided to suspend judgement for a while."

Now genuinely surprised, she raised an eyebrow. "I'm impressed,
Constable. You don't usually 'suspend judgement' for just anyone."

"Let's just say I was intrigued by his handling of Quark ..."

Her smile told him that she wasn't fooled by this evasion. He always
raised the issue of Quark as a means of changing the subject. She was
letting it pass this time. For a moment he was taken aback to see how
well she read him. *When did I become so transparent?* he wondered, he
who had deliberately cultivated the most guarded and enigmatic face
possible--the face he showed to everyone but her.

Kira shut her eyes and expelled her tension with a sigh, letting her
body curve back against his hands.

Their mutual seduction, as always, surprised him by the ease with
which it unfolded. The palms of her hands slid over the backs of his,
lightly caressing. She had once told him that it was his hands that
first made her wonder what he'd be like in bed. Ever since then he'd
been meticulous about shaping them. Now he let them go liquid slowly,
insinuating himself beneath her white under-tunic, easing it over her
shoulders and then off, revealing her body: the leanness of her
muscles, the paleness of her skin.

They proceeded to the bed with very few words exchanged, losing
themselves there in the tangle of each other, an organic dance of
flesh and fluid.

Afterward, he lay pooled some little distance from her on the bed,
deliberately keeping himself apart. It always took him a while to
recover from the sensory rush of physical contact with her.

The two of them had become bed-partners almost by accident. They had
discovered that they "fit" each other over the course of their work
together: the dozens of security briefings, the countless joint
patrols through the corridors of the war-ravaged station, and their
seemingly endless rounds of battle-weary shop-talk and lack of
talk--when they were both too tired to speak and so ended up sharing
the silence, which never felt awkward between them.

And then one day, he touched her. He pulled her out of the line of
someone's phaser-blast, very probably saving her life. The abrupt,
unexpected physical contact broke the last remaining barrier between
them.

The next day she came to his office for their usual briefing, and
before leaving, she laid her hand over his own for a nerve-tingling
second. It was as if they had both decided something.

Odo could recall these moments of their courtship--if one could call
it that--with near-perfect clarity. Yet such details seemed distant
and almost mythological whenever he was actually with her, like a
dream only hazily recollected. When they were together, it was as if
they had always been so, had always spent their evenings like
this--sharing their bodies in a manner that seemed, on the surface,
almost casual.

What astonished him every time he touched Kira was his own ease in
doing so. She never asked him to "perform" as he had done for Dukat
and his cronies. He was deeply aware, of course, that every action he
took as a humanoid was, of necessity, a kind of performance. Therefore
it had taken him completely by surprise the first time his own fingers
went liquid against Kira's skin almost of their own volition. He
wasn't sure what astonished him more: the fact that she did not
register fear or disgust–or the fact that he had somehow known she
wouldn't.

Now, as he slowly assumed his humanoid form again, he felt her
stirring beside him on the bed. She sat up and slipped her arms around
his waist, pressing herself against his back. Odo closed his eyes,
suddenly afraid of the feelings her touch roused in him.

"Were you disappointed that we didn't find anything in the wormhole?"
she asked.

The nature of her question surprised him. In truth he'd been expecting
some kind of upbraiding after he'd bullied his way into that runabout
the other day, right in front of two of the Starfleet officers. It did
not escape him that Kira had let this public insubordination pass
without comment.

"I wasn't really expecting to find much," he lied. It would have been
truer to say that he had tried not to expect anything.

There was a silence, and for a moment he thought that would be the end
of it. But then she spoke again.

"What would you do ... if you did find other shapeshifters?"

He took her hands in his own and slowly kissed them, one finger at a
time. "I'm not sure," he said. "I suppose it would depend what kind of
people they were." He smiled a little. "They might not like me. Not
many people like me."

"I think you underestimate your own charm." Kira let her lips brush
the side of his neck. "Would you miss me?" she whispered. "Would you
miss this ...?" Despite the teasing bravado with which she asked, she
sounded almost afraid of his answer.

He closed his eyes and squeezed her hands. "Yes," he said. "Actually I
think I would." He dared not say any more, for fear of examining his
own feelings too closely.

Kira pressed her body against his once more and let out a sigh. He let
himself imagine it was one of relief.

---
Alternate Reality III
---

For a long time afterward he sat in the garden, trying to become used
to his humanoid skin once more. He almost didn't hear her approaching
footsteps. It was her voice that brought him out of himself.

"So how's the shapeshifting going?"

She was trying hard to sound casual. It relieved him to be able to
notice that detail.

He remained where he was and scooped up a nearby rock in one hand,
hefting it for a moment while he tried to shape thoughts into words.
The process was ... not exactly more difficult now, but it was more
complex.

"I'm not sure," he said, still not looking at her.

"Oh?"

He continued to stare at the rock in his hand, not really certain what
he should say to her, how he should explain it. Who would have
believed that a few moments of contact with his own people could have
altered his own sense of self so completely? He was still trying to
wrap his mind around what had happened. Eventually, however, he
decided that plain truth was best.

"I've experienced a link," he said, and immediately knew that this
statement was inadequate.

She hesitated before answering him. "And ... how did that go?"

He found he had the strangest urge to swallow, as if there were a lump
in his throat. That was ridiculous, of course.

"Odo? Are you all right?" There was the slightest edge of panic trying
to break through the compassion in her voice.

"I'm fine, Major."

"You seem a little ... well, not quite yourself." She crouched down
beside him now and set her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her.
"Are you sure you're okay?"

He tried to smile at her, but was sure that his expression must have
looked half-hearted and twisted. "I'm fine, Kira--truly I am." He so
rarely addressed her without using her rank, and he saw from the
flicker of surprise that crossed her face that the use of her
unadorned family name had not gone unnoticed.

He glanced at her hand where it still rested on his shoulder. The
protective attitude that she had adopted toward him during this whole
adventure suddenly seemed extraordinary to him. He was so used to
looking out for himself that he was unsure how to react to it.

"You don't need to worry. The experience was--a little overwhelming,
that's all," he told her.

"I imagine it would be."

"Did you see the bird?" he couldn't help asking.

"The bird?"

"The Arbazan vulture. It was the last form that I took before I landed
here and resumed my humanoid shape. I tried so many different shapes
after I ..." he was surprised at the shyness in his own voice. "After
I linked with the other changeling."

"The female?" asked Kira. Was he imagining the hint of mischief in her
eyes and voice?

"Well--not female as such. Not as you think of it. Changelings don't
have a fixed gender. But yes, it was her--the one who greeted us."

"And the link?" she prompted.

"It was ..." Again he paused as words seemed inadequate. "...very
liberating." Perhaps he should have said "intoxicating," but he knew
that word-choice would bother Kira. "I never realized just how
solitary I've been up to now."

"I always thought you preferred it that way."

"So did I."

Kira's expression changed, taking on a dawning recognition and a hint
of sorrow. "Odo, I'm sorry that I wasn't a better friend to you. I
just realized that ... I never asked you much about yourself all this
time. I suppose I assumed you didn't want to talk about it." She
looked at the twilit, unearthly garden around them. "I guess this
means you're not coming back with me."

There was a long silence. All the things that had gone unsaid during
the years of their friendship might have come tumbling out at that
moment, in that alien twilight. But instead they chose instead to
share the silence one last time.

Odo's voice, when it came at last, was very soft. "I need to be here
for a while." Then, softer yet: "I'm sorry."

Astonishingly, she took his face between her hands and looked into his
eyes. The corners of her own eyes were damp. "Don't be sorry. This is
what you've always wanted. I'm happy for you." Then she kissed his
forehead, as if she were bestowing some kind of blessing.

Odo drew back, unsure of what to say. He took the rock he had been
holding--a fragment of some kind of translucent amber that rather
resembled a changeling in its primal state. He pressed it into her
palm and wrapped her fingers around it.

"I'll miss you, Nerys," he said.

"I'll miss you too, Odo," she whispered. "Good luck."

---
Alternate Reality IV
---

He did not know how many hours he stood there, waiting for her door to
open, waiting for Shakaar to emerge from her quarters.

Perhaps Quark was right, and he was only ever happy when he was
miserable. For the very act of standing here was a kind of
self-inflicted punishment. There was no reason in the world for him to
have personally relieved the Starfleet security officer who had been
keeping watch, protecting the First Minister from any lurking would-be
assassins.

Of course, Odo's own reasons for standing here had nothing to do with
protecting Shakaar. That was a convenient fiction for the benefit of
others--Sisko, Worf. He was standing outside Kira's door because he
could, because his power and authority enabled him to play at being a
sentry exactly as he had once pretended to be a rat in a cargo bay to
spy on some Klingon saboteurs. The fact that he looked like a security
chief on guard duty was of no consequence. He was good at assuming
forms and their poses.

Some time well into the morning, but before any reasonable waking
hour, Kira's door finally slid open with a hiss, and Shakaar emerged
with Nerys right behind him. Odo did not turn around, but he felt
their footsteps, heard the low murmur of their voices. They seemed in
the process of some highly personal discussion, but they immediately
fell silent as soon as they noted him standing there.

"I'll see you later then ... all right?" Kira said to Shakaar. Her
voice sounded anxious.

The First Minister nodded. "Of course, Nerys. Lunch?"

"That would be wonderful. Lunch-time then."

Shakaar headed off down the hallway, and for the first time in hours,
Odo felt self-conscious about his presence there in the corridor.
Nerys addressed him without waiting for him to turn around. "Odo ...
what are doing here?"

"I ..." He turned and saw her. She looked sleepy in a way that was
amazingly attractive. Her damp hair framed her face softly, and she
wore a loose robe of copper-colored silk. There was a flush of color
on her cheeks, on her neck and chest. It occurred to Odo that she was
likely wearing nothing underneath that robe, a thought which disturbed
him precisely because he found the idea so strangely alluring.

"I thought of something else I needed to ask you ..." he lied.

"For the investigation. Of course ... Come in." She gestured him into
her quarters.

They went inside, and Odo stared at his surroundings as if they were
foreign. Eventually his gaze came to rest on a low table in the main
room, where there stood two long-stemmed glasses, one drained, the
other still half-full, and a bottle of Bajoran spring wine resting in
a bucket of half-melted ice.

"More 'silly humanoid mating-rituals,' I guess," said Kira, in
response to his gaze.

"I beg your pardon?" said Odo softly, surprised by the shakiness of
his own voice.

"Shakaar was here most of the night," she explained, as though she
thought he might not have noticed that fact. "On the sofa," she added,
a little too hastily. Her lips twisted into a slightly grim
expression. "I doubt that was what he was hoping for, especially after
all that wine. I'm afraid I disappointed him ..."

Odo tried--and failed--to quell the surge of wild, irrational hope
that suddenly sprang to life inside him. "Oh?" he said, as mildly as
he could.

"You know what's funny?" Kira went on. "I've been fantasizing about
seducing Edon ever since I was thirteen--and then, when he actually
starts to get interested in me ... I just couldn't go through with it.
I guess I just value him too much as a friend."

Odo's heart sank.

"I don't know how I could've been so stupid not to see this coming,"
Kira snorted. "I suppose you could even say I led him on--flirting
like a schoolgirl ..." Suddenly noticing the look on Odo's face, she
stopped. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you. These sorts of
things must all seem silly and pointless to you."

"No--not at all," he tried to reassure her--but he found that he
couldn't even look into her eyes for fear of giving something away
with his own.

"Shakaar and I had a long talk last night. I told him that we were
good friends, and that I wanted to keep it that way."

Odo couldn't help but turn away from her now. He was certain that if
she saw his face, she would instantly know the secret that he'd hidden
for so long--a secret that was all too much like Shakaar's. If the
handsome First Minister had failed to win Kira, then what chance did
he have? No doubt Kira saw him too as a friend--and would want to
"keep it that way" in his own case as well.

That was when she came to stand behind him and wrapped her arms around
his waist, her hands meeting somewhere over his non-existent heart.
Odo closed his eyes. His changeling skin was so acutely sensitive
right now, he seemed to feel every inch of her that was pressed to his
back--every fold of her silk robe, every curve of the flesh that it
covered.

"I'm so glad you're here," she said. "I can always tell you
everything, and you always listen--even when I'm babbling like an
idiot."

Odo let out a soft breath. He took her hands and held them tightly in
his own. "I'm glad, Nerys," he whispered. "Glad that I can help you.
Always."

She released him and turned him to face her. He tried to look away
once more, but it was no good.

"Odo ... are you all right? I thought you wanted to ask me some
questions."

"I ... I did ... but they're not important now."

She looked at him keenly. Odo wanted to dissolve himself into the
floor, but knew that he could not.

"How long were you outside my door, Odo?" she asked quietly.

His voice was so low he could barely hear it himself. "Nearly all
night," he confessed. "I ... relieved the Starfleet officer that was
on duty there when I found out that Shakaar was in your quarters."

He waited, fully prepared for her to slap him across the face.

She didn't. Her voice was surprisingly light as she said: "Well, that
explains a lot." Her fingertips touched his cheek, then skimmed down
underneath his chin so that she could raise his face and make him look
into her eyes. She smiled a little.

"Are you telling me that you were feeling jealous, Constable?"

"I ... yes, I suppose I was." He blew out a soft breath. "Yes. I was."
There, now it was laid bare. Odo felt strangely relieved to let go of
his secret. Kira studied his face for a moment.

"And here you had all of us thinking that you were immune to those
kinds of feelings. I have to give you credit, Odo. You had me fooled."

"You're ... not angry with me?"

She shook her head. "Afraid not." Then she leaned up and forward, and
Odo felt her lips brush his own.

Without another word, she took his hands and guided them down to the
thin cord that was tied at her waist. His fingers, though shaking,
worked deftly to undo the knot. As easily as thought, the robe slipped
from Kira's shoulders and crumpled in a heap to the floor.

Odo had been right. She wore not a stitch of clothing underneath it.

---
Alternate Reality V
---

The female Founder, looking ragged and charred and less like herself
than he had ever seen her, actually shrank back from Odo's approach.
He moved slowly, as if confronting a wounded animal, and within a foot
of her, he stopped, holding his outstretched hand palm-up. "Link with
me," he said.

His voice was almost pleading, for there was part of him that hated to
see her brought to this state, powerless before her adversaries. He
could recall only too well the Great Link's collective memories of
persecution at the hands of solids. It was painfully ironic to see his
foe--yet also his mentor and sometime lover--the embodiment of all
that was most mysterious, alluring, magical, and powerful about his
own species, forced into the position of the abject "hunted." She had
become in this moment what changelings had been centuries before.
Before they had made themselves into the gods of the Dominion.

Yet, he reminded himself, she must be made to see reason--to surrender
herself to him now--if the Great Link was to survive.

"Link with me," he repeated, more firmly now, almost a command.

The Founder shook her head. "It's no good. I'm dying, Odo. I could not
link with you even if I wished it."

"You can--and you will." Odo stepped up to her, then forcibly seized
her hands, wrapping his fingers around her crumbling ones. She stared
at him for a moment in pure astonishment as their hands melted and
merged together, and then the female changeling closed her eyes and
shuddered, her body sagging against Odo's. He caught her, held her, as
they began, almost imperceptibly at first, to melt and pool together.

Odo felt no panic as his sense of self bled into hers, until, for a
brief, ecstatic moment, they were one being instead of two. In that
moment, he was reminded of his very first link with her, there in that
twilight place that the Obsidian Order had since destroyed. It all
came flooding back to him now--the astonishment, the sheer sense of
wonder at his own power.

This time, however, that power was at his disposal and control. His
cells intermingled with hers because he wished it, when and where and
at the moment he wished it--not recklessly out of unschooled instinct
and passion. His being permeated hers, bringing with it the undeniable
shock and joy of physical intimacy, of deep--yes, sexual--pleasure and
release. For a moment, he wondered if complete separation was even
possible after such a joining. Would not some microscopic fragments of
his being and knowledge continue to taint her--and hers to taint
him--long after they had re-coalesced back into their individual
selves?

Yet his mind was clear. He seemed to be observing his own pleasure in
this link from afar. He had work to do. Like an archivist
straightening a disordered bookshelf, he sifted through and reordered
her cells--just as the Link had once done with his own, the time they
had made him human. But he was restoring her to herself, removing and
casting aside the poisons and distortions of disease, restoring order
in the most fundamental way to her body. He did not disappear into
her, or into the joined awareness that was both of them. He remained
himself--Odo--throughout their intimate exchange. He was aware also,
of the world outside their link: of Nerys, trusting him, watching his
back, as always--her hand locked on Garak's arm, preventing the
Cardassian from firing his phaser as they watched, watched in
astonishment, in horror--perhaps even in hope.

Slowly he reformed the humanoid body that he was accustomed to, the
body that had in some sense become his "true" form, the natural
expression of himself. It was an act that he had once regarded as
drudgery and a sham, but which now filled him with a sense of pride at
his own capabilities. He had come to appreciate the suppleness of his
fluid body so much more now that he had experienced the horror of
feeling it fall apart. Sketching in the details of his appearance
quickly and easily, he now let himself enjoy the sense of mastery that
came with being able to do this. It did not surprise him to look up
and find the female changeling in her humanoid form as well, looking
as healthy and whole as he knew himself to be.

The female Founder, visibly astonished, studied her own "solid" hands
and body as they separated. It pleased Odo to have taken her aback.
For in their previous joinings she had always seemed to treat his
responses as predictable, expected. No longer.

He stood waiting for her to collect herself, his arms folded across
his chest as he watched the conflicting emotions traversing her face.

"You will order your forces to stand down," he said, his voice soft
but still firm.

Still she resisted. "And if I don't?"

"If you don't, the Great Link will die," he told her. A statement of
fact.

Her face twisted into a look of rage and disbelief. "You would not
allow that to happen! Not to your own people!"

He kept his voice carefully measured, striving not to betray any
emotion. Neither anguish nor guilt nor rage, all of which lay just
beneath his carefully composed exterior.

"I will have no choice but to allow it--unless you stand down."

When she did not move, he spoke again, choosing to make a personal
appeal. "I've lived out of the company of other changelings for a long
time," he said, "but you haven't. You will go mad without the others.
You know it. The Dominion cannot win this war, and if the Founders
die, all order within Gamma Quadrant will crumble."

She glared at him, knowing he was right, that she was cornered. He saw
her gaze come to rest upon Nerys for a moment, holding a mixture of
contempt and disbelief. No doubt the Founder had discerned his
intimacy with Kira from their link. The changeling's stare lingered
only for a moment, however. In her mind, Odo was her only equal here.
This was between the two of them. She turned to face him once more,
her attitude still defiant, but muted now.

"This is your choice, then?" she asked. "After all that has happened?
You would still choose the solids over your own kind?"

"The only choice to be made here is yours," said Odo. "Either you will
order the Jem'Hadar to stand down--and we will allow you to return to
the Link with the cure I have just given you--or else we will all die
here; and the Great Link will die as well. And then you will have no
place to go, even if you survive."

She stood still for a moment, and in those few seconds he almost
believed that she would indeed sentence them all to death--Bajorans,
humans, Jem'Hadar and Great Link alike, rather than concede that her
cause was lost.

"It is you," she told him finally, "who will have no place to go. The
Link will never welcome you back after this, and the solids that you
call your friends--you will watch them all grow old and die, until you
truly are alone." Her gaze flickered over to Kira again, but briefly.

"Make your choice," said Odo.

She nodded once, then turned to the console, her face an
expressionless mask. She ordered the Jem'Hadar to stand down. Then she
looked up at Odo once more. "There. It is done. You have your wish.
You have saved your precious Bajor and Federation. I hope they
appreciate your sacrifice--for that it what it is."

"This isn't what I wish," said Odo quietly. "This is what has to be."

The female changeling bowed her head.

Much, much later, back on DS9, the Founder's words came back to haunt
him as he lay in bed with Nerys, having made love to her with so much
urgency and desperate hunger that she was left gasping and speechless
on the bed. He, a tingling pool of gel beside her, spilled among the
twisted sheets, was not thinking of the warmth of her skin or her
cries of passion at his touch, though these had given him pleasure. He
was thinking of that which they had not shared and never would.

Their physical union, whatever heights of bliss it reached, would
never be the Link, would never bring either of them that overwhelming
sense of oneness and completion.

He was alone. He would always and fundamentally be alone, even with
Nerys.

Her fingers trailed through his substance. His form rippled with
involuntary pleasure. He made himself once more into the Odo that she
recognized, and closed his eyes as her hands caressed his facsimile
humanoid skin.

For a brief, blessed moment, all was blotted out by the pure sensation
of her mouth on his. It hardly mattered that his wasn't a "real"
mouth. The sensation was real, as was the heat between their bodies.

"I love you, Nerys," he whispered, holding her body close against his
own, letting her be his link--to passion, to vulnerability--to
himself.

He forced himself not to wonder what he would ever do without her.

---

The End