The BLTS Archive - The Shadow Across the Grass
Third in the Firefly series
by Charlene (charlene.vickers@gmail.com)

---

Disclaimer: We should all thank our lucky stars that
Paramount owns these guys and not me.

Archive: trekiverse.org, BLTS, ASCEML, wherever I end up
posting it myself on LJ, please ask otherwise

Beta: Thank you to my friend, my arse-kicker, my beta, JA
Ingram, who spent untold hours going over the plot of this
and forcing me to think it out. She challenged me on the
plot and the details, and much of what you read here is due
to her influence and good sense. She also helped me
immensely with many scenes, including writing the bulk of
Stephen's Blue Christmas challenge.

Note: This is Part 3 of the Firefly series, and begins six
months after the end of Part 2. It'll make more sense if you
read the first two parts. Written for 2007 NaNoWriMo.

Additional Sneaky Note: You may notice characters,
locations, and concepts similar to those found in JA
Ingram's Garak/Bashir stories "The Cheap Date" and "Sinless"
and in our joint story "The Never-Ending Sacrifice". This is
not a coincidence, and I thank her for allowing me to draw
from them.

---

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It
is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the
little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself
in the sunset.

 -- Crowfoot, 1890

---

Julian cracked open an eye at the first wail. The chrono
read 0535, or exactly two hours since the last time he'd
been so rudely awoken.

He crawled out from beneath the blankets and pushed himself
to his feet, shaking the cobwebs from his mind as the
screams of a very unhappy infant filled the air. He paused
for a moment to scowl at the snoring hulk who hadn't even
had the common courtesy to wake up this time. The bastard...

Fiona was wet, of course, but a sodden diaper didn't
normally elicit this kind of indignation from her. "Let's
see, sweetie," he murmured to her as she howled, her face
purple and her fists balled up as if she were planning to
punch him in the nose, "you're not hot, you haven't gone
number two again..." He suddenly noticed an acrid smell
coming from the corner of the room. "Did you throw up?" he
asked, cradling the infant as he peered into the crib; sure
enough, a puddle of vomit had already soaked through the
bedding and was probably seeping into the mattress at that
very moment. A quick check with the medical tricorder he
kept in the room confirmed that she'd picked up the
rotavirus going around the station, which also explained the
diarrhea she'd had earlier that night.

As he ordered a hypo of bicyclidine and a bottle of
electrolyte solution and sat down in the big rocking chair
with her, he took a second to glance up at the portrait of
Keiko and Molly - the original Molly - that hung on the wall
above the nursery replicator. It was amazingly true to life,
he thought, especially considering that the artist who
painted the portraits from Julian's identikit sketches had
never met them in person, since in this timeline they'd
never been born.

"How did you do it?" he asked Keiko's portrait. "How did you
handle it all?" But the painting didn't answer him, and even
as he said the words he realized that it had likely been as
much a struggle for her as it was for him.

He injected Fiona with the antiviral; after a few minutes of
rocking and patting her, she eventually calmed down enough
to take the bottle. As he looked into her sweet face he
wondered for the thousandth time how he could reconcile his
love for his girls with his wish that Keiko were alive. It
was ironic, he supposed, that the only reason he was a
father was because she'd never been born, and the only
reason she'd never been born was because he and Miles had
done something she'd probably have approved of, had she
known.

The moral implications of what he'd done sometimes gave him
a headache. They had been intending to return to the Defiant
while on Deep Space K-7 a hundred years in the past when
they'd ducked into a corridor and interrupted a violent
rape. That ostensibly good deed had prevented Keiko's
grandfather from being conceived, and the resulting change
had created a timeline identical to their original one
except for the fact that Keiko and her children had never
existed. Then his last-ditch attempt to bring her back by
artificially impregnating the young woman (a morally suspect
act if he'd ever heard of one) had catapulted him and Miles
into a new and completely different timeline in which Garak
had succeeded in his attempt to destroy the Founder
homeworld, which in turn had prevented the Dominion from
sending the Bajoran sun into supernova.

It really was ironic, he thought: his 'good deed' had caused
at least three innocent people to wink out of existence,
while his less morally defensible act had saved the lives of
three billion Bajorans and countless millions in the Gamma
Quadrant. It had also given him this precious little girl
and her older sister. He remembered an old saying his mother
had once taught him: the road to Hell is paved with good
intentions. He wondered if the opposite was true as well.

Fiona let go of the bottle, her eyes dropping shut as she
relaxed in his arms. He placed her gently on a quilt on the
floor and cleaned up her crib, then changed her and put her
back to bed before dragging himself back to the bedroom and
dropping like a lead weight.

Only to wake up three minutes later when his alarm went off.

"Good morning," Miles said in a chipper tone as he swung his
legs over the edge of the bed. "She sleep through the
night?"

Julian made a note to kill him when he had a free moment.
"She woke up three times," he muttered. "I just got back to
bed."

"Mm." Miles was already in the hallway. "Mind if I grab the
shower?"

He glared at the man. "Could you please wake up Molly and
get her ready for breakfast?" he asked, his voice a bit more
plaintive than he'd meant it to be.

"But I thought you-" Miles suddenly noticed the look on
Julian's face and sucked in his lips. "I'll, uh, go get the
girl. You shower first."

Good choice, he thought as he pushed himself back to his
feet and headed toward the bathroom. He had a long day ahead
of him and the last thing he needed was to spend the morning
stinking of baby puke and righteous indignation.

They had just dropped the girls off at daycare when Miles
started humming a song, the most absurd grin on his face.

"What is up with you today?" Julian asked.

"Nothin'." Miles suddenly began to sing. "I'll have a
bluuuuue Christmas without you..."

"Shut up!" Julian said with a snort. "Why are you singing
that? Christmas isn't for three months yet."

"Well, I was thinkin'."

He rolled his eyes; here it comes, he told himself. "What is
it?"

"Well, y'know, this is actually gonna be our first real
Christmas with the girls-"

"Yes, yes it is."

"-and I was just thinkin' about Christmas back when I was a
young lad, and how Sean and Padraig and I would light
candles in the window and go to Midnight Mass at St.
Vincent's and wait for Father Christmas - and I suppose it
made me think about how nice it would be if we had more."

He shot a glance at Miles out of the corner of his eye.
"More Christmases."

"More kids," he clarified to Julian's silent horror, his
tone of voice inexplicably reasonable despite the magnitude
of the bomb he'd just dropped. "I've always wanted a big
Irish family, and like Sisko said yesterday, it's a lot of
fun growing up with a bunch of brothers and sisters. We have
two girls, why not a boy? Maybe even twins?"

No, Julian thought, correcting his earlier note: he wouldn't
kill Miles. He'd torture him to within an inch of his life
and *then* kill him. And cancel Christmas at the same time.

He looked back at Miles, who was apparently expecting some
kind of reply from him. What the hell did he think...and
then a wicked idea entered his mind. "All right," he said,
firmly suppressing an arch grin, "when do you want to
start?"

"Well, any time, I guess," Miles mused as they passed the
Klingon restaurant on the way to the Infirmary. "When d'you
think you can schedule it?"

He pretended to consider the point for a moment. "We're
rather busy right now with the meningitis epidemic on Bajor
and all, but I can probably get you in with Dr. Girani by
the end of the week."

Miles gave him a puzzled look. "Why do I need to see her? I
thought it was just a cheek scraping."

"You need to see Girani so she can clear you for the
surgery," he said innocently. "She'll perform the procedure
herself, of course; I wouldn't dream of-"

"Surgery?" Miles said, interrupting him.

"For the artificial uterus." He gave Miles a broad smile.
"After carrying Fiona I could never forgive myself if I
denied you the joy of carrying one of our children yourself.
Or even two, if you think you're up to twins."

Miles's eyes grew wide and his jaw dropped to the floor as
he stopped stock still, staring at Julian in the middle of
the Promenade, a look of pure panic in his eyes. "But - but
I - are you out of your - I can't..."

"You'll love it," he said, gazing dreamily off into the
distance. "There's nothing quite like it. It's so," and he
waved a hand in the air, "spiritual. It grounds you, makes
you feel at one with the universe - well, you'll see." He
beamed at Miles. "Now that you've volunteered, I can't wait.
I'll tell Mirat you'll comm her. Have a good day, dear."

As he gave his still sputtering husband a peck on the cheek
and headed toward the Infirmary, he couldn't help but
chuckle to himself at the look of sheer horror on the man's
face. Serves the bastard right, he thought.

---

He didn't think he'd ever understand how the instrument of
so much death and suffering could be so utterly beautiful.

Julian had always found it ironic that something as
elegantly geometrical and ethereally delicate as the average
virion could bring so much misery to so many. Yet the virus
he'd just isolated, the one displayed on the slide in front
of him, was without a doubt one of the most brutal killers
he'd ever encountered, with over 530 victims in Lonar
Province over the last eight days.

He adjusted the microscope to view the entire virus particle
under medium power. Most Bajoran retroviruses were
asymmetrical, but this species was almost unnatural in its
crystalline blue perfection.

Or was that the answer? He selected a strand of RNA and
magnified one section, then re-adjusted the microscope to
focus on one anomalous nucleic acid pair. Strange: uracil
was normally found paired with adenine, not xanthine, and to
make matters worse the molecule he'd found wasn't even
typical Bajoran xanthine.

Something was rotten in the province of Lonar, he suspected.

"Doctor?"

He looked up at Jabara, who was leaning against the
doorjamb. "Any news from Starfleet?"

"Nothing yet," she replied. "Any luck?"

"I've isolated the virus," he said. Who would have the
information he needed... "I'll send what I have to Starbase
375, but I'd like you to put in a call to Dakhur for me
right away. Have them send us any information they have on
genetically engineered viruses discovered on Bajor in the
past ten years."

She grimaced. "Are you thinking it's a holdover from the
Occupation?"

"It's possible," he said, one eyebrow quirking up almost
involuntarily in surprise. "Listen, when you talk to the
Ministry, also have them send up any information they have
on epidemics in Lonar over the past 50 years or so. If there
was an earlier outbreak during the Occupation, the Bajorans
probably didn't have the technology at the time to identify
the virus as engineered."

"I'll call them right away," she said as she stepped back
into the main room.

As the door closed behind her, Julian examined his
reflection in his office window. Her words had indeed
surprised him; Cardassia had brought many horrors to Bajor
in his original timeline, but biowarfare using genetically
engineered pathogens hadn't been one of them. Then again,
perhaps his change had also affected how the Cardassian
Empire waged war.

It was possible. In this timeline, Cardassia and the
Federation had exchanged ambassadors long before the Bajoran
pullout. If the Cardassian ambassador had learned about
Colonel Green's use of a modified smallpox virus to decimate
Korea before the invasion by his ecoterrorists...

But there was no sense obsessing over what couldn't be
changed, he told himself. He sent the data he had to Admiral
Quinn's team on Starbase 375, then tapped his combadge. "Dr.
O'Brien to Captain Sisko," he called.

[[Doctor!]] the captain said through the link. [[Any
success?]]

"Yes, sir. I've isolated the virus, and I suspect that it
may have been engineered."

Sisko paused, as if thinking for a moment. [[I can't say I'm
surprised; the First Minister suggested the possibility this
morning. Have you uncovered any evidence that could support
your theory?]]

"Just the unnatural symmetry of the virus structure and the
fact that the RNA contains a molecule that isn't normally
found in Bajoran retroviruses."

[[Do you have time to prepare a short presentation for this
afternoon's staff meeting?]]

"Yes, sir; I'll prepare a report. I've already sent the data
I have on the virus to Starbase 375 so they can begin work
on a treatment protocol."

[[Good work, Doctor. Let me know if they come up with
something. Sisko out.]]

He began to collate his report, then paused for a moment to
let the daycare know they might be late that afternoon. As
he typed out the message, he thought about the changes he'd
made and how despite all the petty annoyances and
difficulties of his life he was still happier than he had
ever been in his previous life.

Sometimes it bothered him that the changes he'd made had
actually improved his life. Improved, he snorted; they'd
given him something he'd never thought possible. In his old
life he'd flitted from lover to lover, never letting himself
think for a moment about a family. And why would he? He'd
believed the Adigeon Prime geneticists who had told his
parents he could never father a normal child. Then he found
himself suddenly the father of a perfectly normal little
girl with another one on the way, and somehow -

He sighed. If he'd known earlier that he could father a
normal child, he probably would have married Palis and
remained on Earth, which would have meant that none of this
would have happened - and the Bajoran solar system would be
gone. Perhaps Miles was right, he thought; maybe these
things do happen for a reason.

He returned to his report.

---

"Doctor, I'm sorry we don't have time for your presentation
this afternoon," Sisko said as Julian took his seat beside
Miles at the conference room table. "We've just received
word that Bajor's main relay station in the Gamma Quadrant
has gone dark. First Minister Shakaar has asked Starfleet to
investigate."

"The Lemna V relay?" Kira asked as she sat across from them.
"There's a Bajoran colony on Lemna V."

"The last signal from the colony was received three hours
ago," Sisko continued. "Since then, nothing. Given the
reports we've had over the past few months of attacks by
Jem'Hadar and Vorta on strategic facilities in the Gamma
Quadrant, it's imperative that we find out what if anything
has happened, and from what Captain Nkama tells me the
Gryphon isn't going anywhere right now. Is that your
understanding, Chief?"

"Commander Park says she'll be in dry dock for the next two
weeks at least," Miles answered. "The phase inducers are
completely fried."

"Which means," Sisko said with a scowl at the padd in his
hand, "that we're going to have to go out there ourselves
with the Defiant. Colonel, I'll be leaving command of the
station in your capable hands. Doctor," he continued,
turning to Julian, "Admiral Quinn has asked that you remain
on station until the meningitis crisis has been resolved, so
I'll ask you to choose a member of your staff to accompany
us."

"If the colony's been attacked," Julian replied, "you'll
need more than just a physician. I'd suggest the Defiant be
staffed with a full trauma team, including the EMH."

Sisko nodded. "Very well. Assign a team."

Dax sat back in her chair. "There's not much we can do with
one ship," she said, "especially if the Jem'Hadar has
mounted an offensive. Is Command sending us backup?"

"The Venture is on its way, but it won't arrive for at least
24 hours. The problem might very well be a solar flare or
even a failure of the colony's electrical system. If Lemna
didn't have the strategic importance it has we could wait,
but the Bajoran government has asked that we investigate the
outage immediately." He tapped his padd again. "There is one
other urgent matter. We've just received word that Gul Dukat
escaped from Starbase 681 yesterday."

The senior staff reacted with shock and anger as Julian
thought back to the last time he'd seen the man. Dukat had
led a group of rogue Cardassians and Jem'Hadar on a futile
attack of the station some months earlier. After seeing his
first officer, Gul Damar, killed, he'd suffered an episode
of primary psychosis and had been taken to Starbase 681 for
treatment; from what Julian had heard on the grapevine it
might not have been his first. Psychotic or not, though,
Dukat was always dangerous. And if he had heard about
Ziyal...

"I'm not happy leaving the station with him at large," Sisko
continued, "but we have no evidence that he's on his way
here. For all we know he could have disappeared into Orion
space or allied himself with the Breen."

"Could he be behind the outage?" Kira asked. "Lemna's a
critical facility. If he's thinking of leading the Vorta and
the Jem'Hadar against Bajor or the Federation, the first
thing he'd do would be to take the Lemna relay out. And
being the second Bajoran colony in the Gamma Quadrant..."

"If he is responsible," Worf interjected, "it is imperative
that we reach the colony as quickly as possible. Gul Dukat
has no love for the Bajoran people."

Sisko held up a hand. "People, Dukat is only one man, and
not a well one if the psychiatrists at Starbase 681 are to
be believed. Let's not overestimate his ability to wreak
havoc. Constable," he said, turning to Odo, "I'll ask you to
also remain behind. Although I doubt Dukat will come
calling, if he does I'll need you here to co-ordinate
station security. You know better than anyone what he's
capable of."

"I'll have my deputies keep an eye out for him," Odo
replied.

The captain let his gaze pass over them. "We'll be departing
at 1900. Colonel, don't hesitate to call on the crew of the
Gryphon should you require any assistance. Until 1900,
then?"

Julian met Miles's gaze as they rose to leave. "I'll be
along in a moment," he whispered, squeezing his hand
surreptitiously. Miles nodded grimly as he left.

Once the room had cleared, Julian stopped by the door. "Sir,
if you have a minute?"

"Have you heard from Starbase 375?" he asked.

"It's not about that, sir. It's about Dukat." He thought for
a moment. How to convey what he had to without breaking the
law... "Captain," he started, "there's another reason why
Dukat could be headed to Deep Space Nine."

"Doctor, if you know something - does this have to do with
Ziyal?" he asked, his eyes narrowing.

"I strongly suggest that you speak with her before the
Defiant departs. She's on the station today; she has an
appointment with Dr. Girani at 2000." He hoped that would be
enough of a hint, given Mirat's specialty.

But Sisko didn't take it. "You can't tell me?" he asked, the
frown lines between his eyes deepening.

"She would be better suited to provide you with the relevant
information than I would," he replied, "and Bajoran
physician-patient confidentiality laws prohibit me from
releasing personal information about a civilian without a
direct order." Also, he added privately and with some
embarrassment, he really didn't want to be the one to spring
this on him.

"Ah, yes," Sisko groaned, rubbing his temple, "Bajoran
medical regulations. I think we've heard quite enough
already from Kai Winn on that subject." He suddenly grinned.
"It's strange, isn't it? You wouldn't think Ziyal would be
such a sweet young woman. Just goes to show you that nature
only goes so far." He waved a hand. "I'll speak with her
before we leave. Dismissed."

"How'd he take it?" Miles asked when Julian caught up with
him at the turbolift.

He shook his head. "I didn't tell him everything. He's going
to talk to her."

"It's like a bad holovid of Romeo and Juliet, is what it
is," Miles said as the doors closed behind them. "Level Two.
You know, Sisko's going to blow a gasket."

Julian leaned into Miles, his earlier annoyance with him
pushed to the back of his mind. "I wouldn't want to be in
their shoes right now," he said, "but what can he do other
than yell? They're both adults. Listen, I have to stop off
at the Infirmary and assign a trauma team before we go home.
I'll also have to upload the EMH to-"

As they stepped out of the turbolift they were immediately
greeted by an ear-splitting scream coming from the direction
of the daycare. Not again, he thought as he pressed his palm
to the security panel and the door opened. If he found out
whose whiny spoiled brat was causing the ruckus this time,
he'd report them to-

"-NOOOOOO! DON'T WANNA GO!!"

Oh God.

Julian knelt down, placing his hand gently on the stomach of
the screaming, wailing girl floundering around the daycare
floor. "Molly, it's Papa. It's time to go home, sweetheart."

She gave him a filthy look, her face redder than her hair
and her voice rising into a near-screech. "NO! DON'T WANNA
GO WANNA STAY *NOW*!!"

"Molly-"

"I HATE YOU!" she screamed, slipping out from under his hand
as she leapt to her feet and began to run around the main
room, throwing toys and books around in an incoherent rage
as she ducked Julian's arms. "I HATE YOU!"

He finally grabbed her around the waist and held on as she
flailed, her face darkening by the moment. "Come on," he
said more firmly than he meant to. "Now stop it!" But she
kept fighting him even as Miles returned to the main area
with a bundle in his arms. "What has got into - STOP THAT!"
he yelled as Molly sank her teeth into his arm.

"LET ME GO!"

"She's been like that for the last hour," an obviously
exhausted Agnetha Karlsson said as she leaned against the
doorway. "I was going to call you, but your nurse said you
were in a senior staff meeting."

"NO! I DON'T-"

"We were, but it wasn't - IT WASN'T AN EMERGENCY," Miles got
out between Molly's shrieks, rocking Fiona while Julian used
his free hand to replace the toys Molly had scattered. "If
it happens again-"

"LEGGO OF ME! LEGGOOOOO!"

"-just COMM US directly!"

"Molly-" Julian began.

"I HATE YOU! I HATE - NOOOOO!"

As they left the daycare somewhat shamefaced, Molly
redoubled her squirming in Julian's arms as her screams
turned into incoherent howls. Two prylars whispered
furiously to each other as they passed them in the corridor,
giving the four of them filthy looks as Molly began to kick
him and Fiona began to wail.

"You," Julian muttered to Miles, "and your 'big Irish-"

Molly suddenly vomited all over him.

"-family'."

He wiped the stinging liquid out of his eyes and batted at
the trickles of putrid bile-stained vomit that were
dribbling from his completely soaked uniform jacket down his
trousers and into his shoes. Out of the corner of his eye he
noticed Miles suddenly turn his face away and stifle a
laugh. The arse, Julian thought savagely: the complete and
utter arse.

He opened his mouth to give him a tongue-lashing when Molly
began to cry. "Papa, I'm-" she got out before she began to
sob.

"It's okay, bunny," he murmured to her, cradling her in his
arms. "Let's go find out what's wrong with your tummy,
okay?"

She nodded, burrowing her head into his wet shoulder.

He should have noticed she was sick, he thought as he
followed Miles down the Promenade. She was normally such a
good girl that he should have noticed there was something
out of the ordinary. At that moment he didn't know which one
of them deserved to be kicked around the Promenade more:
Miles for making fun of him or himself for not doing his
job.

Just as they reached the Infirmary Miles suddenly stopped in
his tracks and spun around, his eyes wide. "You don't think
it's..."

"It's not the meningitis," he replied as he brushed by Miles
and carried Molly into the main diagnostic room. "Humans are
completely immune. It's probably the bug Fiona came down
with this morning. I think I've seen half the kids on the
station in the Infirmary since the D'Abruzzo boys brought it
back from Earth."

Miles's shoulders visibly relaxed. "Thank God."

Julian placed Molly gently on a biobed and began a standard
viral scan as the evening nurse stepped up to the bed.
"Okuna," he said after he read the results on the diagnostic
screen, "could you get me 0.2 ccs of bicyclidine and 125
millilitres of human pediatric electrolyte solution? Also
ask Dr. Perreira to see me as soon as she has a moment, if
you don't mind."

She wrinkled her nose at his uniform. "The rotavirus?" she
asked, handing him a hypospray and a stack of clean towels.

"That and being overtired, I think." He injected Molly with
the antiviral then peeled off his uniform jacket, plucking
off his combadge before throwing the filthy rag into the
refresher bin in the corner. One good thing about the new
quilted uniforms, he thought: they absorbed more.

The air suddenly filled with the unmistakeable stench of a
full diaper. Julian put down the towel he was about to clean
Molly's face with and sighed loudly. If one more thing -

"I'll take Fi home, get her cleaned up," Miles said from
behind him. "You'll have to feed her though; the Defiant
leaves at 1900 and I have to get ready-"

"Yes, I know," he interrupted, glaring over his shoulder.
"I'll be home as soon I talk to Eva Perreira."

Miles chuckled and patted him twice on his clean shoulder,
leaving before Julian could stare any more daggers into his
back.

"Is Daddy goin' on the Defiant?" Molly asked. "Is he goin'
away?"

"Yes, he is, bunny, but don't you worry. He'll be back for
dinner tomorrow." He tossed the towel towards the recycling
bin and took the glass of electrolyte solution from Okuna,
whose face was a portrait of schooled neutrality; he
silently thanked her for having the common decency not to
laugh at him, at least not to his face. "Now drink this," he
told Molly. "It'll make your mouth and your tummy feel
better."

As Molly reluctantly sipped at the sweet liquid, Julian
grabbed a fresh towel and tried to make himself respectable
- a losing battle, he suspected.

"Done!"

"Good bunny! Now let's see Dr. Eva and then we'll go home
and get you all comfortable, hmm?"

"'kay."

As he picked her up and went off to find Eva Perreira, he
wondered if he'd ever get the hang of being a parent.

---

Julian arrived at the Infirmary the next morning only
slightly worse for wear. Molly's stomach had calmed down
enough that she'd been able to sleep comfortably and Fiona
had only awoken once during the night, but it had been a
while since he'd slept alone. According to the calendar he
and Miles had just celebrated their fourth wedding
anniversary last week (which is what probably got Miles
thinking about having another child), but in reality it had
only been sixteen months since they'd landed in this
timeline and a short six months since they'd actually become
lovers.

It wasn't surprising, he supposed, that he had become
accustomed to his new life so quickly, but then again he
hadn't lost as much as Miles had. The worst of it for him
had been the loss of Keiko and her children (and of Garak,
he had to admit), but of course his losses were nothing as
compared to Miles's. Still, finding out that day that he, or
the previous Julian, had been working on an in vitro
fertilization procedure for the two of them had come as a
shock.

But then he'd met Molly, his Molly, the next morning. Julian
and Miles had returned to the station to find a young
Bajoran nanny waiting for them at the airlock, a tiny
redheaded girl nestled in her arms. Molly had hopped out of
the nanny's grasp and run up to them, almost toppling over
as she stretched her arms wide to give them both a hug.
Miles had understandably been beyond even noticing her
existence; his 'real' family had just disappeared into thin
air, and (as he later told Julian) he had at that moment
been torn between ripping apart the universe to get them
back and throwing himself out the nearest airlock. But
Julian had knelt down and swept Molly up, giving her an
enormous kiss and fussing over her. She couldn't have known
that he and Miles weren't the same Papa and Dada who had
left her two days earlier; all she knew was that they were
her parents and she loved them. And in that first moment
he'd held her in her arms, Julian had fallen in love right
back.

He didn't know how many times he'd been told that having
children was the perfect expression of love. Usually it was
some ancient, creaking relative of his encouraging him to
settle down and raise a family 'before it was too late', but
even his mother had said it from time to time. He'd always
smiled and outwardly agreed with whomever was spouting the
platitude, but he'd never really believed it. How could he?
As a physician and a counselor, he'd dealt with too many
children who had been conceived to prop up a failing
marriage between two warring, incompatible adults, or who
had been abused - physically, mentally, and even sexually -
by those who professed to love them. But since he'd been in
this timeline he'd learned that having a child in one's life
could bring greater joy than he'd thought imaginable.

He'd fallen in love with Molly and Fi, those two amazing
little beings, almost instantly, and he suspected that his
love for them had somehow triggered his love for Miles. The
scientist in him bandied about words like 'hormones' and
'pheromones' and the cynic in him shouted 'guilt' and
'transference', but none of that seemed to matter. He had
fallen in love with his best friend, the macho and irritable
Miles O'Brien, a man who on his best day thought a grand
romantic gesture meant warning him before he farted under
the sheets. Miles had eventually learned to love him in
return, but even now Julian wondered sometimes if he was
nothing more than a barely adequate substitute for the real
love of Miles's life.

He sat at his desk and brought up the day's messages. The
Health Ministry had sent them data on the virus samples
isolated on Bajor during the Occupation; Julian was
surprised by the sheer number of pathogens that had been
identified. As he transferred the information to the
Infirmary database and uploaded the first samples to his
terminal, he wondered why anyone would use such an
indiscriminate, uncontrollable tool that could backfire so
easily to do their dirty work. Cardassians were
histologically similar enough to Bajorans that they were
susceptible to most Bajoran pathogens. Why, then, would they
unleash a potentially fatal-

The Infirmary's emergency alert suddenly went off. He rose
to his feet, but before he could return to the main area
Kira's voice came over the comm system. [[Ops to Infirmary.
There's been a medical emergency at the Temple. I'm beaming
two directly to you.]]

"Acknowledged," he replied, saving his work as the familiar
whine of the transporter filled the room. He rushed to the
beam-in biobed, grabbing a tricorder on the way.

It was Ziyal.

"What happened?" he asked a near-frantic Jake Sisko, who had
also been beamed in.

"I don't know!" he cried, wrapping his arms around himself
as Julian scanned Ziyal. "When I got there she was lying on
the floor. She was - she was..." and he began to cry. "Doc,
please..."

"She's been subjected to some kind of energy discharge,"
Julian said to Jabara. "3 ccs of cordrazine." He injected
the drug and scanned her again. "Damn."

"What is it?" Jake cried, trying to get back to her side as
one of the technicians tried to hold him back.

"We'll need the neuroscanner," Julian said. "We'll start
with a deep level scan, with special attention to the
medulla oblongata." He turned to Jake. "Listen, why don't
you go out into the waiting room-"

"I'm not leaving her."

"All right; then take a seat there," he said, gesturing at
the neighbouring biobed. "And don't interrupt us. The scan
we're about to run is delicate, and we'll need to pay full
attention to it."

As they positioned the bulky piece of equipment over Ziyal's
head and began the scan, Julian snuck another look at Jake.
It had been only four days since Miles had opened the door
at 0400 to find them standing in the corridor, Ziyal in
tears, Jake fiddling with the earring the station's resident
vedek, Halan Parnas, had just fitted him with. Miles had
been right: it was just like Romeo and Juliet - if Juliet
had fallen pregnant.

He returned his attention to the scan. "I'm picking up
activity in the dorsal horn," he said as his eyes met
Jabara's. "Let's give her 2 ccs of morphonolog and 5 ccs of
pectrinal chloride." Ziyal was in severe pain if the scans
were to be believed, but that wasn't a normal side effect of
an incapacitating blast from an energy weapon.

But neither was the shutdown of large sections of her
cerebral cortex. He looked up at Jake again. "Are you sure
you didn't see anything or anyone unusual? No burns on the
floor, or-"

"I..." Jake was almost vibrating as he apparently willed
himself not to break down completely. "I think the cabinet
they keep the Orb in was open. Is she going to be okay? Is
the baby..."

"Jake," he said after a moment, walking over to lay a hand
on the younger man's shoulder, "this is very serious, and
you should prepare yourself. It's not good. Sections of her
brain are shutting down and I don't know if I can stop it."

"But you'll try, right?" he asked, his eyes black with fear
and grief.

"Absolutely." He turned back to Jabara. "Prep her for
surgery. I'm going to try to isolate the brainstem and apply
cortical grafts to reroute around the damaged tissue." He
tapped his combadge. "Infirmary to Ops."

[[We're in the middle of a crisis right now,]] Kira replied.
[[In fact, I'd like to see you up here as soon as you can
make it.]]

He frowned. Ziyal's condition was deteriorating but if
conditions were really that bad, informing Kira about it
could wait. "I'll send someone down. Infirmary out." He
tapped his badge again. "Infirmary to Dr. Girani."

Her drowsy voice came through the comm system ten seconds
later. [[What is it, Julian?]]

"We have a medical emergency. I need your help immediately.
Bring Okuna if she's there."

[[Well, of course Dani's here,]] she grumbled. [[Where the
hell else is she going to be: running the dabo tables at
Quark's? We'll be there in ten minutes.]]

"Fine," he said, but not before the connection was cut off.
He frowned; Girani Mirat might be one of the best GPs and
ob/gyns he'd ever met, but at times she could be more
caustic than bleach. Sometimes he wondered why Danielle
Okuna put up with her.

"Doc," Jake began, "is she-"

He interrupted him. "I have to ask you to wait out in the
front area. Do you have anyone who can stay with you? Is
Kasidy on the station?"

"I-" He drew his hands over his face. "I don't remember, I
can call-"

"Jake," he said, grasping his shoulder again, "I'll do the
best I can, all right? Just hold on for her sake. If
anything happens, I promise you'll be the first to know."

He nodded wordlessly, the tears falling freely as he
reluctantly allowed a technician to lead him towards the
waiting area, his gaze never leaving the face of the young
woman on the biobed.

Julian's eyes met Jabara's again as the door closed. "What
do you think her chances are?" she asked under her breath.

"Not good," he replied in a low voice. "And she's already
lost the baby."

She grimaced, shaking her head as she returned to the task
of preparing Ziyal and transferring her into the surgical
bay.

As he changed into scrubs and sanitized, he almost contacted
Ops again to find out if they could reach the Defiant. If
there was anyone Jake needed at the moment it was his
father, but without the Lemna relay they probably couldn't
contact the ship.

He let out a sigh and pushed through the doors to the
surgical bay, clearing his mind of everything but the
procedure he was about to perform.

He was applying the first cortical graft when Girani and
Okuna arrived. "Sorry to wake you," he said to them, not
looking up from the surgical field. "Girani, I'll need you
to cover out front. Okuna, go to Ops and tell Colonel Kira
that - that Ziyal has been critically injured by an unknown
energy discharge. Jake Sisko found her in the Bajoran
Temple. We'll probably be in surgery with her for at least
the next four hours."

"Jake and Kasidy are out in the waiting room," Girani
replied. "Should I comm the captain?"

"He's on the Defiant right now. I don't know if they're in
comm range given that there's a problem with one of the
relays in the Gamma Quadrant. You can ask Kira if they can
get in touch with him." A sudden noise from the direction of
the Promenade made him frown. "What's going on out there?"

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Okuna step aside to
allow Girani out of the bay. "I don't know," she said.
"People are running around crying."

"Before you go to Ops, then," he said as he manipulated the
graft into place, "comm the Gryphon. Given that Perreira's
on the Defiant, we might need help from Dr. Sanchez's team
if it turns into a riot." As she left, he took a deep
breath, then returned to the task at hand. Station crisis or
not, this patient needed his undivided attention.

It was almost 1200 before he and Jabara had finished
implanting the grafts, but he wasn't sure if it had made any
difference. "I'm going to speak with Jake and Colonel Kira,"
he told Jabara over his shoulder as he crossed to the
sanitizer and cleaned up. "While I'm gone, run a second deep
scan. I'm not convinced we stopped the cascade, but if we
were able to isolate the brainstem she might make it. Comm
me if she regains consciousness or gets worse while I'm
gone, but make sure to let the two of them in first." It
might be the only kindness he could give them, he thought,
and given the events of the past week Jake had a right to be
there.

"The Colonel's still in Ops," Okuna said from the doorway.
"She said something serious had happened and she wanted to
see you as soon as possible." She and Girani traded worried
glances.

He nodded, ignoring the cold lump of fear that suddenly
settled in his belly. "I'll talk with Jake first," he said
to Girani. "Keep an eye on her and if the scans turn up
anything unusual, comm me."

As he went out to update Jake, he looked back at the
surgical bay for a moment, hoping against hope that Ziyal
would make it.

---

He arrived in Ops ten minutes later only to be waved into
Sisko's office by Colonel Kira, whose expression was
troubled as she stood at one of the viewports. "Sit down,"
she said as the door closed behind him, gesturing towards a
chair before taking her own seat behind Sisko's desk.

"I don't have much-" he started, but he looked again at her
face. Her eyes were hard, her face was lined, and she looked
as if she had aged ten years overnight. This was more than
Ziyal, he realized.

She paused before speaking, looking down at her hands before
returning her gaze to his face. "The wormhole's
disappeared."

"Disa - WHAT?!?" His mouth dropped open. "What do you mean
it's disappeared? The Defiant-"

"I know," she said, holding a hand up. "We picked up a
garbled transmission from them just before the wormhole
vanished. We can't find any trace of it. I've sent out...."

Her voice trailed away in his mind as the implications of
what she had said began to reverberate. If the wormhole had
vanished, if it were gone forever - no, no, he wouldn't
think of that. It had to be temporary; it just had to be. He
couldn't accept the alternative. He wouldn't accept the
alternative. Miles was on the Defiant, the Defiant was in
the Gamma Quadrant, the Gamma Quadrant was cut off -

The air felt suddenly thick, as if it were holding him in
its grasp. He could hear Kira saying something, but it was
nothing but noise. Was this what Miles had felt when Keiko
had disappeared - oh God, how was he ever going to tell the
girls? How was he going to live without - please, he begged,
please let this be temporary, please-

And his eyes snapped open as a sharp pain lanced itself into
his right cheek.

Kira had slapped him.

He looked up into her determined face. "I - I can't believe
that," he said. "That can't be. He's not gone. They're not
gone."

"Julian," she said, "I know this is a hell of a shock but
you need to pull it together. You and Odo are the only
members of the senior staff I still have. I'm going to need
your help."

He found himself rising to his feet. "We need to go out
there and run a close-up scan of the area," he all but
shouted. "Maybe the signature of the wormhole has just
changed, or-"

But she was shaking her head. "We've already done that. A
science team from the Gryphon went out an hour ago. There
isn't even a sign that there ever was a wormhole. The good
news is that we didn't find any debris, and there's no sign
that the wormhole's been destroyed."

If they were gone - no, he simply wouldn't accept that.
Miles wasn't gone. There was no debris. It was temporary.
"Could this have something to do with what happened to
Ziyal?" he asked.

Her eyes suddenly widened. "Oh Prophets, Ziyal. How is she?"

He took a second to centre his thoughts. Keep your mind on
your job, he admonished himself. "I'm not certain yet
exactly what happened," he said, "but it's very serious. I
don't think she's going to make it."

She looked away. "I...Jake...this is just..." But she stood
up straight again (taking her own advice, Julian thought)
and looked him in the eye. "As to your question," she said
in a rough voice, "I don't know. The wormhole disappeared
just before Jake commed us for beamout."

[[Infirmary to Colonel Kira.]]

They frowned at each other as Kira tapped her combadge.
"Kira here."

[[Colonel, Ziyal is awake and she's asking for you,]] Girani
said. [[She says she has something important to tell you.]]

"Has she stabilized?" Julian asked.

[[I'm afraid not. You'd better come down right away.]]

They shared a look before leaving Sisko's office for the
Infirmary. In the turbolift, Kira looked up at him. "You
okay?"

He shrugged and gave her a quick but grim nod. 'Okay' was
about the last word he'd use to describe himself, but Kira
had been right: he had a job to do. He had to remain calm
and to carry out his duties. In any event, it was far too
early to panic.

"Nerys..." Ziyal breathed as she reached out from the biobed
they'd moved her to in his absence. She was pale, almost
ethereally so, and her voice was barely a whisper. To her
side, Jake was standing, holding her other hand, his face
deceptively calm as he softly caressed her shoulder. Kira
took Ziyal's hand and stood over her.

Ziyal blinked, her eyes suddenly vacant. "It was Father."

"Father?" Kira asked. "You mean Dukat?"

"He...his eyes were...red..." The words came slowly. "He
tried to...get past me to the...I think he threw me...I
don't..."

The colonel hit her combadge with her free hand as Ziyal's
eyes fluttered shut. "Kira to Ops. Go to red alert. Gul
Dukat has been spotted on the station. I want full security
details on all pylons and pads and increased security on the
Promenade. No ships are to leave the station until further
notice." She turned back to Ziyal, waiting until she opened
her eyes again. "Do you remember anything else?"

Her eyes closed again; Julian grabbed a tricorder and
scanned her discreetly while she spoke. "...no...he was
red...the baby...is she..."

Julian's eyes met Jake's; he gave the young man a brief
shake of his head before stepping in between her and Kira.
"Everything's fine," he said, not wanting her last thoughts
to be ones of grief or pain. "Just try to rest. Colonel," he
said, turning to Kira, "could I join you in the front room
in a moment? I need to speak with Jake privately."

Kira made a sound of protest but Julian shook his head
again. "All right," she said, her voice hollow. "Ziyal,
honey, I'll see you soon. Take care." She squeezed the
girl's hand before giving her a kiss on the forehead and
retreating to the front waiting area.

He drew the young man aside. "Jake," he said in a low voice,
"you have to make a decision for Ziyal. Her respiratory
centre is failing. She doesn't have a personal directive in
the system and she isn't in sound mind at the moment, so we
don't know whether she'd want to be put on a respirator
under these circumstances or - or whether she'd prefer
nature to take its course. Under Bajoran and Federation law
you're her next of kin now."

Jake stared at him in horror. "But I - I'm only - I
can't..."

"You have to," he said, putting a hand on the younger man's
shoulder. "It's your decision. You probably didn't consider
this possibility last Sunday-"

He slumped against the wall. "Oh, God," he groaned. "I - how
can I tell you to..." He swallowed, his gaze riveted to
Ziyal's face. "If we put her on a respirator, do you think
she'll get better?"

"I wouldn't say never, but I think the chances are in the
neighbourhood of one in a million, if that. Parts of her
brain are already gone."

Jake dropped his head into his hands, letting the tears fall
freely. "I...I don't want her to live like that," he said as
he rubbed at his eyes. "I don't want her to die, and I don't
want her to suffer, and..."

"I know, Jake; I know."

He suddenly glared at Julian. "Goddammit!" he cried out
through his tears. "What the hell am I supposed to do?"

He said nothing. What could he say?

Jake's gaze eventually wandered back to Ziyal's still, ashen
face. "Just - just make sure she isn't hurting, okay?," he
finally said, his voice almost a whisper. "That's - don't do
anything else. I can't put her through..."

"All right," Julian replied, silently signalling one of the
nurses. "We'll leave you alone with her. She isn't in any
pain. Call if you need me - I'll be out in the waiting
area."

He nodded wordlessly; Julian gave his shoulder another
squeeze before heading toward the front room.

"How is she?" Kasidy asked him as she and Kira rose to their
feet.

"I'm sorry," he said to them. "I don't give her more than a
few minutes. Jake's with her now."

"Sweet Prophets," Kira murmured as tears began to stream
down Kasidy's face. "And Captain Sisko is on the Defiant.
I...I have to get back to Ops. If Dukat's on the station,
we're in even more trouble than I realized."

"That was four and a half hours ago," Julian pointed out.
"He could be on Cardassia or anywhere in the sector by now."

"We still have to prepare for the worst, and-"

Jake's voice suddenly rang out from the main room. "Doc!"

He had never been a religious man, he thought as he and
Kasidy rushed to Ziyal's bedside, but at that moment he
prayed to any god, prophet, or even devil listening for the
ability to start this day over again.

Ziyal's skin was tinged with blue, her eyes closed, her
breathing irregular and laboured as Jake sat beside her, his
cheek pressed into hers, his tears spilling over onto her
cheek. Less than a minute later Ziyal let out a final ragged
breath, her eyes flickered, then - nothing.

She was gone.

If for nothing else, Julian thought as Jake dissolved into
heaving sobs in Kasidy's arms, Dukat would surely roast in
Hell for this.

---

He'd wanted to complete Ziyal's autopsy that afternoon but
had desisted after Girani marched him into his office and
ordered him to take the rest of the day off to be with his
children. She'd been right, of course; the researchers at
Starbase 375 had the meningitis problem well in hand, Girani
and the Gryphon's CMO were perfectly capable of handling
anything that came up on the station, and his girls needed
him more than Starfleet did at that moment. So there he
stood at 1320 outside the daycare, three hours earlier than
normal, wondering how he was going to tell Molly about
Miles.

In the last sixteen months he'd watched Molly grow from a
little toddling two-year-old, barely able to run or form
even a short sentence, to a talkative, athletic little girl.
During that time, however, she'd never lost her fear that
Miles would one day simply disappear. One reason was the
paranoia of her little friend Tekeny Garak, whose father had
given his life to destroy the Founders. Tekeny was certain
that any adult who began to act unusually (as Elim Garak had
apparently done shortly before his death) was about to
disappear, and his constant assertions that Miles was "going
away" had taken their toll on his daughter. Unfortunately,
Tekeny had only seen what would have been obvious had anyone
else been watching Miles closely. The man hadn't been able
to dissimulate his distaste for and disbelief in the new
timeline and everything in it, including Molly.

Julian couldn't fault Miles for not being able to act like a
father to her, at least not at first; after all, this Molly
wasn't 'his' Molly, not the one he had with Keiko. As the
months passed and as Miles recovered from his devastating
grief, though, he had still refused to see Molly as real. He
had treated her and the child Julian had been carrying at
the time as little more than characters in a holonovel, only
beginning to accept and love them after Fiona had been born.
Molly had recovered some of her confidence since then, but
now Julian had to go in there and tell her that her Daddy
really had "gone away" just like she had been predicting for
the past year.

He suddenly cursed himself under his breath and told himself
to get a grip. Stranger things had happened in this sector;
the wormhole could pop back into existence at any moment.
There was absolutely no need to scare her. The crew of the
Defiant might have even closed the wormhole themselves if
there was an invasion force on the other side, or if Dukat's
men had destroyed...

No. He wouldn't think of that.

He pressed his palm to the security panel and entered the
daycare centre.

The front room was unnaturally quiet. Julian could hear
murmuring in the back room and a few whimpered tears, but
the happy laughter he normally associated with the place was
completely absent. He snuck a look in the side room only to
find two dozen Bajoran children sitting quietly, their hands
clasped in front of them, one of the younger boys crying in
Hantha Rekhim's arms.

Agnetha Karlsson held a finger to her lips as she gently
closed the door behind her. "They're praying," she whispered
as she led him to one of the smaller media rooms.

He turned to look back at the children through the window in
the door, wondering why - but then he almost smacked himself
on the head. Of course they're praying, he chided himself:
their gods had just vanished into the vacuum of space. He'd
been so fixated on what had happened to Miles and the rest
of the Defiant crew that the full implications of the
wormhole's disappearance hadn't even entered his mind.

Molly was sitting in the far corner of the media room,
playing silently with a holo-construction set while the
three Garak children napped on a sofa shoved up against the
far wall. "Hey, bunny!" he said softly as he knelt down by
the door.

She jumped to her feet and ran toward him, kissing him on
the cheek as he held her in his arms. "Papa!"

He grinned at her. "So how's your day been?"

"Everybody's sad," she said. "Miss Hantha said the wormhole
closed up."

It suddenly felt like an icy band had wrapped itself around
his heart, and he wondered how much of it she understood, or
(for that matter) could understand. "Yes, it did," he said
as he stood and walked with her out to the main area. "We're
going to go home early today. Do you want to wait here while
I get Fiona?"

Mrs. Karlsson, who had been following them, held up a hand.
"The two of you stay here. I'll have one of the nursery
aides bring her out."

Molly watched her leave, then tugged on Julian's sleeve. "Is
Daddy gone to fix the wormhole?" she asked.

"Not exactly-"

"Then where did he go?"

He took a deep breath. How could he ever explain this?
"Listen," he said, kneeling down again, "why don't we go
home and talk about it."

"Is Daddy coming home for dinner? You said he was," she said
with a pout.

"I know I did, but..." He hugged her again. "Daddy's going
to be late, so we'll have early dinner, okay?" he said
quietly.

"'kay."

Just then one of the infant caregivers emerged from the back
with Fiona. He took the baby and carried her away, Molly
clutching to the waistband of his jacket.

---

In the end it hadn't been as difficult as he had expected.
Molly was simply too young to understand what "the other
side of the wormhole" meant, and had decided that Miles was
actually off fixing it. He didn't bother to correct her; the
wormhole could return at any time, and if it didn't-

He forcibly turned his mind away from that. There was no if,
he told himself: the wormhole would return. It was only a
matter of when.

He fed and changed Fiona, put both of the girls down for
their naps, and sat down at the terminal, checking the time
in Dublin before arranging for a subspace channel to Earth.

Aoife O'Brien beamed at him once the connection went
through. "Julian! It's so nice to see you! Michael!" she
cried, twisting in her seat to shout up the stairway behind
her. "Michael, Julian's on the comm! Come downstairs!" She
turned back to him. "So how is everything? How are the
girls?"

He tried to tell her, but all that came out was, "I...I
don't know how I'm supposed to..."

She looked into his eyes for just a moment, then her face
went absolutely white. "I'll fetch Michael; you - you just
wait there," she said in a thin voice before quickly heading
up the stairs.

Julian had only spoken to Miles's father and stepmother once
before in this timeline, when he'd called them the day after
Fiona was born. Even though their conversation had been
short, they had been thrilled about the baby and they seemed
to like him very much. He wondered if Miles really
understood how fortunate he was to have such supportive and
loving parents.

Michael O'Brien flew down the stairs. "Julian," he said, his
eyes dark with fear as he sat in front of the panel, "what's
going on?"

"Miles is, um, on the Defiant," he started, trying to
control his emotions. "The ship was on a mission in the
Gamma Quadrant, and the wormhole just...it vanished, and we
can't contact them..."

Michael's mouth dropped open. "The wormhole - vanished?"

"It..." Julian swallowed. "There's no trace it ever existed.
We've sent people out, but..."

"Oh no," Aoife moaned from behind her husband.
"No...no...please, no."

"When - when did this happen?" Michael finally said.

"A few hours ago," Julian replied. "I was in surgery...they
only told me just now. I, um, I got the girls home and I
thought I'd better comm you."

"Do you know if he's all right?" Aoife asked. "Can you get a
message through to him?"

He shook his head. "We can't reach them. We don't know where
they are or...or anything and I..."

"Bloody," Michael muttered. "And you with the young ones."
He turned to his wife. "Aoife! Power up the other terminal
and comm Starfleet Family Services. Tell 'em to get us seats
on the next shuttle out. And don't forget to say it's a
hardship case and we need priority. Julian," he said,
turning back to the screen, "we'll be there as soon as we
can."

"But-"

"No buts, son," he said, interrupting him. "Something tells
me that right hoor of a father of yours isn't exactly
bustin' the quadrant down to help you, is he?"

"Well..."

"Right." He twisted in his seat and listened for a moment.
"There is? Three hours? Y'sure?" He listened for another
moment, then turned back to Julian, shaking his head. "Aoife
says they messaged us already; there's a special shuttle
going out to Bajor, but we'll have to be fairly lively if we
want to catch it. Listen, I don't know exactly when we'll
get there, but - just hold on. We'll be there before you
know it, and with any luck Miles'll meet us at the airlock
to tell us we missed Harold's giant birthday bash for
nothing." He gave Julian a nod. "We love you, son. We'll be
there by the beginning of next week."

"Thank you," he finally got out past the lump that was
beginning to form in his throat. "I'll - I'll see you soon."

The screen went dark. He dismissed the idea of messaging his
own parents; that bridge had been burnt the moment he'd
received his father's vitriolic message after Fiona's birth.
But there was one more thing he had to do.

He got up to make sure that Molly was still sleeping, then
returned to the terminal. "Computer," he said in a low
voice, "search Miles O'Brien's logs for personal
directives."

[[Two files found.]]

Typical of Miles, he thought: one for him and one for his
father. "Play file 'Julian'. Volume low."

Miles's face suddenly appeared on the screen. "Hey, you," he
said. "If you're, um...Christ on a crutch, I hate this
bullshit..."

He smiled at Miles's blasphemous tirade in spite of himself.

"...but if you're watching this I'm probably dead. Well,
maybe I've been taken prisoner by the Cardies or God knows
who in this sector, or I've gone missing or something, I
don't..." He stopped to take a deep breath. "Right. First
off, if I'm dead I want you to know that I love you. Now you
take care of yourself and remember, I want you to name the
baby Molly..."

Julian reached up and silently paused playback as a wave of
cognitive dissonance passed through him. This wasn't his
Miles; this was the Miles who had existed before they
changed the timeline. But in another way, he thought as he
examined the features on the screen, this was more "his"
Miles than the one he knew. This Miles had loved him, and
not as a substitute either. This Miles had chosen to marry
him and had chosen to create their two daughters. He had the
same mannerisms and way of speaking as the Miles he knew, of
course, but the Miles on the screen had in a very real sense
belonged to Julian in a way the one he knew never would.

He tapped the screen again to resume playback.

"...after my ma. And, um, don't spend the rest of your life
pinin' away for me, okay? Find yourself a nice guy or a nice
girl, I don't care, and just - be happy. Sisko has a copy of
my will but if he's gone off and got himself killed at the
same time, I left another copy with Commander Data on the
Enterprise." He reached toward the screen. "Seriously,
Julian. I mean it. Don't spend your life mourning me. For
one thing, if you do that I'll come back from Tir na nag and
haunt you."

That won't happen, Julian thought.

"Now if I've gone missing or something, I don't want you to
risk your fat gut on some batshit scheme to free me, all
right? You get someone else to do the dirty work. You might
be carryin' her but she's my girl too." His eyes suddenly
became soft. "And anyway, wouldn't make sense for both of us
to get thrown into some backwater Cardie stockade,
especially with you like that. I, um..." and with that Miles
gave the monitor a stern look. "If you can't get me back, I
want you to promise you'll go on with your life. Don't sit
around for thirty years waitin' for me. Okay?"

"No," he said out loud.

Miles narrowed his eyes; Julian got the distinct impression
that the man on the screen knew him all too well. "Love, I'm
telling you," he said, "don't try to take on the bloody
universe. You might be the most stubborn bastard in the
sector and probably the whole quadrant but if I don't come
back you have to go on with your life." He huffed. "Listen.
Save this and re-open it in a year and watch it again; maybe
it'll make more sense then." He looked away for a second,
then leaned in towards the screen. "I hope to hell you never
have to play this, love, but if you are, just - be a good
father to Molly, all right? Put a holo of me by her crib,
let her know that I loved her and wanted her more than
anything..."

"Computer," he said in a rough voice, "end playback."

He sat in front of the monitor for a few minutes, thinking
about what he'd do if Miles-

Stop brooding on it, he told himself.

He had just risen to his feet when the door chimed. "Come
in."

Kira stuck her head through the door. "Is this a good time?"
she asked in a low voice, peering around him towards Molly's
door.

"She's down for her nap; come in." He waved Kira into the
living area. "Has anything happened? Any news?"

"I sent out another runabout, but they didn't discover
anything new," she said as they took seatsacrossfrom each
other. "I just talked to Dr. Girani; she said she sent you
home. How's Molly taking it?"

"She doesn't understand, but then again I'm not exactly sure
how to tell her. I'm not certain she-" and he suddenly
stared at her. "Oh God - Jake. Is he-"

"I was just at their quarters," she told him. "Jake's doing
about as well as you'd expect, I guess. Kasidy and Nog are
there with him now." She shook her head in apparent
disbelief. "I still don't know why they hid their
relationship from Captain Sisko. I mean, you knew about it,
I knew about it, the Cardassians probably knew about it. Why
run around behind the captain's back?"

"Ziyal said that Sisko ordered Jake not to see her, but that
was back when he was seventeen. If I'd been in Jake's place
I'd have told him to sit on it and rotate, but I suppose
it's different when your father's the station commander. Did
Ziyal tell you about..."

She gave a brief nod. "The three of us had dinner last
night. Captain Sisko seemed to take the news pretty well,
she said. He was shocked, of course, but compared to what
they'd been expecting it was nothing. By the way, Kasidy
said she tried to get in touch with the captain's father at
his restaurant, but he's already halfway here."

"I know," he said. "Jake commed him from our quarters on
Sunday. Mr. Sisko said he wanted to come out here and make
certain everything was legal, or at least that's what he
said - I have a feeling he really wanted to make sure Ziyal
was good enough for Jake. Now..."

"Now he'll be here to support him," she finished. "I commed
the Venture's captain, by the way; she'll have her CMO keep
an eye on him, but I wanted to give you a heads-up in case
he needs to see a doctor when he gets here. Kasidy doesn't
want to give him the bad news over subspace. I also let
Captain Figueiredo know about Miles. She asked about you and
the girls."

He sighed, trying to ignore the sympathetic look in Kira's
eyes. Miles had once mentioned to him that he'd served with
Gabriela Figueiredo on the Rutledge when she was just a
green ensign fresh out of the Academy. He'd described her as
'a hell of a soldier' and hadn't been surprised when she
rose quickly through the ranks. Julian knew that she and
Miles exchanged messages in this timeline on a weekly basis,
but he didn't know if he'd ever met her himself.

"I should get back," Kira said as she stood and headed
toward the door. "I have about twenty more notifications to
make. It's one of those things nobody ever teaches you how
to do, but you have to do it anyway." She reached the
doorway, then turned back. "If I hear anything I'll comm
you."

"Thanks. I might take a runabout out myself, for what good
it'll do. If there are any free, that is," he added.

"Captain Nkama's offered us the use of the Gryphon's
shuttles. They have more sensitive scanners than the
runabouts. I'll let him know you might want to borrow one."

"Thanks."

It was probably futile, he told himself as he watched the
door close behind her. They'd sent out at least three
runabouts that he knew of and had been searching the area
with the station's sensors for the better part of six hours.
He didn't know what he thought he'd find but he felt he had
to go out there, if only for his own peace of mind.

"Papa?"

He turned to find Molly standing by her door, her red curls
in disarray as she rubbed at her eyes. "Did you have a good
nap, sweetie?" he asked her.

She nodded. "Is Daddy home from fixing the wormhole?"

"Um, he's - he's not, um..." he babbled, before taking a
deep breath and starting again. "He's not home yet," he
replied, "but you know what? Papa's going to go out there
tonight and work on it too."

"But *Daddy* fixes things, not you," she said with an air of
authority.

He grasped for an explanation. "Well," he started, "tonight
I'm going to start. So after dinner we're all going to go
back to the daycare and you and Fiona can spend the evening
there with Mr. Kalen."

She pouted at him. "I want Ziyal instead."

Oh God. "I, um...I have to talk to you about Ziyal," he
said, a lump of cold dread forming in his stomach. "Let's go
sit on the sofa."

"'kay."

Once they were seated, he put his arm around her. "This is
really sad news, bunny. Ziyal was in the Infirmary today."

"Did she sneeze?"

He raised an eyebrow. "No-"

"She sneezed last week. That's cause Jake put a baby in her
tummy, right?"

"Ye-es, that's - that's true," he stammered, a bit shocked
by her grasp of the situation, "but that's not why she was
in the Infirmary today. Today, a bad man did something
terrible to her and hurt her very badly. Miss Jabara and I
worked very hard to try to - to try to fix what he'd done,
but the bad man had hurt her too badly and we couldn't help
her."

"Did she go away?"

He gave her a sad smile. "No, bunny, she didn't go away. She
and the baby died and they had to go to heaven."

Her little brow knit as she looked up into his face. "When
are they coming back?"

"Oh, honey," he said, holding her tight. "They can't come
back, sweetie. When people go to heaven they can never come
back. I'm so sorry."

"Papa! No...."

Julian held Molly as she cried against his shoulder. Even
though she seemed heartbroken, he still worried whether she
really understood what he'd meant, especially considering
this was the first time she'd had to deal with death in
person. She'd known, of course, that her friend Tekeny's
father had died when she was a baby, and he and Miles had
once told her about Miles's 'really good friend' Keiko and
her daughter who had died, but this was someone Molly had
actually known, even loved.

He only hoped this was the last time he'd have to do this
for a very long time.

---

The Infirmary was as still as a cathedral the next morning.
Girani, who had just gone off duty, had left Julian a
message mentioning (among other things) that most of the
Bajoran civilians who normally made up the bulk of the
station's residents had left for the planet surface the
previous evening. Some of them had been scared off by Kai
Winn's sudden pronouncement that the disappearance of the
wormhole was a sign of the Prophets' displeasure at the
continuing occupation of Deep Space Nine by Starfleet, but
the majority were concerned that Dukat was preparing to
wreak further havoc. Julian couldn't blame them, not after
what the bastard had done to his own daughter.

And that was the first order of business for the morning:
Ziyal's autopsy. It turned out to be completely routine,
almost overly so. He didn't discover anything during the
gross examination that would explain the underlying cause of
death, but he collected the necessary samples and set them
aside for further study. As he closed up, he looked down on
her face one last time. Sisko had been right; she had been a
sweet young woman. She would have made a fine mother too.

Jabara sealed the remains in a steri-bag and arranged for
the bag to be beamed directly to the station temple; as
Julian watched Ziyal's body shimmer out of existence, his
mind went back to the first time he'd met the shy girl. Kira
had brought her to the Infirmary after rescuing her from
Dozaria. He'd treated her minor infections, cuts, scrapes,
and badly healed broken bones, but he'd also detected subtle
signs that the girl had been sexually abused. Unfortunately,
she'd refused to see a counselor, preferring instead to
spend her days with Garak, who naturally had been flattered
to have such a beautiful young woman fall in love with him
even if he didn't love her in return.

No, he reminded himself: that was in his original timeline.
In this timeline Garak had been married to the imperious and
commanding Iliana Ghemor, a woman who would not have
tolerated any threat to her husband's undivided attention.
Ziyal had instead sought counselling from the station vedek
and had eventually entered into a wholly appropriate
relationship with a young man her own age who reciprocated
her feelings. Well, appropriate in the eyes of everyone but
Captain Sisko, that is, and his reservations were
understandable; after all, Jake was the son of the Emissary
of the Prophets and Ziyal was the daughter of Bajor's Public
Enemy Number One. Still, it hadn't really been any of
Sisko's business, especially since Jake and Ziyal had both
been legal adults for almost two years at the time of their
elopement.

He returned to his office and, pushing aside his worries for
the moment, slid behind his desk and checked his mail for
any word from Starbase 375 about the virus. He had a
suspicion he'd seen that atypical molecule before but he
simply couldn't pinpoint where, and without knowing where
the virus came from it would be almost impossible to develop
a vaccine or a cure. Maybe if he-

"Julian!"

He turned in his seat to find a tall dark-skinned woman
standing beside the nearest biobed, a manicured hand resting
on the shoulder of an older man who was perched on the bed.
She grinned at him as he went out to greet them.

"How are you? How are the girls?" she asked in a light
accent Julian couldn't quite place.

He opened his mouth to answer her, then noticed the four
gold pips on her uniform collar. "Captain," he stammered,
"I-I'm-"

"Oh, please," she said before turning to the older man with
a conspiratorial smirk. "See, I told you. Every time he sees
me he gets all formal, especially if there's someone else
around. I tell him every time, 'just call me Fig', and every
time it's 'aye sir, Captain Figueiredo sir'. Sometimes I
think the only person he actually listens to is Miles." She
turned back to him with a wide smile. "You've met Joe
before, haven't you?"

The older man broke in before Julian could answer her.
"Actually, I don't think we've met," he said. "I'm Joseph
Sisko. Ben's father. You must be Julian O'Brien, right?"

"Yes, sir," he said, taking the man's hand. "I understand
you came out to talk to Jake." Out of the corner of his eye
he saw Jabara step into the ICU and tap her combadge,
closing the door behind her.

"I did," he said. "Well, him and his new - who would think
that such a thing could happen in this day and age? Anyway,
Gabriela here," and he nodded towards the captain with a
twinkle in his eye, "she was kind enough to give me passage
to the station and escort me to the Infirmary. Her doctor
spent most of the trip fussing on me, going on and on about
my heart. I don't see what all the bother is about; they put
in a new one last month and said it'd give me another 50
years." He grinned up again at Captain Figueiredo; it was
obvious the elegant woman had caught his eye. "I could
probably outrun all of you young folks without even trying."

She chuckled. "I don't doubt that, but I think your grandson
would feel better if Julian gave you a quick once-over."

"And the standard blood check," Julian added as he took two
vials from Jabara, who caught his eye and gave him a quick
nod before powering up the blood analyzer.

Joseph frowned as he held out his arm. "What I don't
understand is why they're still doing this nonsense. I had
to have a test when I boarded the Venture too. Didn't that
Garak destroy the shapeshifters?"

"The Founders are tricky," Figueiredo replied. "Starfleet
suspects that there were a few Founders off-planet at the
time, and the ones that were spared were probably members of
whatever passed for the Dominion government. And since they
don't have anything to lose, they're potentially more
dangerous than they were even before."

"Everything checks out," Julian said to them, one eye on the
door to the Promenade, "with the blood and with your heart,
sir. I'm sure Jake will be relieved."

"That boy worries too much. He's worse than Ben." He
suddenly frowned. "Where is Jake anyway? He said he and
Ziyal were going to meet me at the airlock. Has he-"

Just then Kasidy entered the Infirmary. "Joseph," she said
as she approached the biobed, "is everything okay?"

"Just fine, dear," he replied with a smile. "They're just
fussing on me as usual. Did Jake forget I was coming?"

She and Julian shared a look. "Actually, Joseph," she began,
but Captain Figueiredo interrupted her.

"I should make sure that Ferengi bartender I saw isn't
cheating my new ensigns out of a year's worth of pay. We've
been in deep space for almost two years, out past the
Klingon Empire," she explained to Kasidy. "We just returned
to Earth three weeks ago to pick up crew replacements and
have those new warp engine improvements fitted. I swear to
God, the ensigns get younger every year." She turned to
Julian and grinned at him. "I can't wait to meet the baby,
and I can't imagine how big Molly must be by now. I'll catch
up with you later. I'll see you later too, Joe."

"You too." Joseph Sisko watched Captain Figueiredo leave,
then turned to Kasidy, one eyebrow raised. "What's up?"

She gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm afraid I have some bad
news."

As Kasidy told Joseph about the wormhole and Ziyal, Julian
quietly moved to the foot of the biobed, letting the scanner
monitor Joseph's cardiac status as he watched him carefully.
He wasn't too concerned about the elder Sisko's heart - the
new prosthetics didn't usually give much trouble, and he was
otherwise healthy for his age - but it didn't hurt to be
careful any time a man on the far side of eighty received
disturbing news, especially if he'd just undergone major
surgery.

"So nobody knows whether the ship's been damaged or
destroyed or just trapped." Joseph said after Kasidy had
finished. "We really have no idea what's going on."

"We don't," she replied, "but the station did receive a
garbled transmission from the Defiant right before the
wormhole closed. Colonel Kira, Ben's second-in-command, says
it was simply a routine position report."

"So we know they were probably fine at that point."

She gave him a confident smile. "Exactly. Kira's sent out at
least four teams of scientists I know of to scan the area,
but they haven't discovered any evidence to even explain
what happened. Julian went out himself 
"I did, but it was pretty much a useless effort," he said
with a shrug. "I was planning to spend the afternoon going
over the sensor results with a fine-toothed comb, but I'm
beginning to wonder now if I'm just duplicating the efforts
of officers who have much more experience with these things
than I do."

"Julian's husband is on the Defiant," Kasidy added. "They
have two little girls. I'd go out there myself but the Xhosa
doesn't have the kind of sensors a Starfleet shuttlecraft
has."

Joseph shook his head. "You must be out of your mind," he
said to Julian before turning back to Kasidy. "How's Jake
taking it all?"

"He's devastated. I've been so worried about him that I've
made sure he hasn't been left alone. It probably sounds
morbid-"

"No," Joseph reassured her, "that's simple common sense."

She nodded. "Right now his friend Nog is watching him, but
he has duties aboard the Gryphon so we should get back." She
patted Joseph's arm. "Seeing you might give him something to
hold on to."

"I hope so," he sighed as he ran a hand over his face. "You
know, some day I'm going to give Benjamin a piece of my mind
over this. There's no quicker way to throw two young people
together than to forbid them to see each other." He turned
to Julian. "How long had they been together, do you know?"

"I think you should speak with Jake about that," he replied.
"As his physician-"

"-you can't break a confidence," Joseph finished for him.
"That's fair enough. I'd be damned annoyed if my doctor
started blathering on about my sex life to my family." He
eased himself off the biobed. "Listen, would you let me know
if they discover anything about the wormhole? I know you'll
probably be on it like a wolf on steak yourself-"

Julian smiled.

"-but I'd like to be kept in the loop if at all possible."

He took Joseph's proffered hand again. "I will. And don't
forget to comm the Infirmary if you require medical
assistance. We're here 26 hours a day."

"I'll do that."

Julian's smile fell into a troubled frown as he watched them
make their way out of the Infirmary and down the Promenade,
Joseph leaning on Kasidy's arm. He was glad Joseph was here
- Jake could use his support - but on the other hand his
presence was another thing the young man would feel
responsible for.

His gaze wandered back to the terminal in his office, and he
debated whether it would be a waste of his time to go over
the sensor records from the Anticosti. If he didn't, though,
he'd probably spend the rest of the day and night worrying
about whether he'd missed something. "Jabara," he called to
her, "I'll be in my office. Call me if you need me."

She looked up from the biobed she'd been sanitizing. "Yes,
doctor."

As he slid behind his desk he took a moment to check his
mail again. He frowned; for some reason, he'd received an
inordinate number of messages in the last 24 hours from
people he barely knew. He opened one from an old classmate
of his, wondering why he was writing, only to find - a
sympathy card. "Goddammit," he muttered under his breath,
stabbing at the keyboard to delete the message, but - but...

Five minutes later, after he'd dried his eyes and blown his
nose, he noticed a cup of steaming hot Tarkalean tea sitting
on his desk that he knew hadn't been there when he sat down.
He peered out his office window, but Jabara had gone back to
the main room and wasn't looking in his direction.

He had good people working for him, he thought: damned good
people.

He opened the sensor log file and got to work.

---

She was barely through the doorway when Molly spotted her.
"Auntie Fig!"

"Molly! How's my little goddaughter?" Gabriela Figueiredo
cried, dropping to one knee as the little girl barrelled
towards her. "My heavens, you're so big! And so tall! And so
huge!" She looked up at Julian. "And you look just like your
Papa!"

He grinned at the two of them. "Miles says she looks like a
cross between me and his mother." He was faintly surprised
Molly recognized her, but then again Miles did share some of
his correspondence with her.

"She does, but she's ENORMOUS!" Fig gave Molly a big smooch
right on the tip of her nose and scooped her up. "The last
time I saw you, you couldn't even walk. And goodness," she
said, looking down at the baby in Julian's arms, "is that
Fiona? She looks just like a little transporter copy of
Miles!"

"My baby," Molly said with a wide smile.

Fig burst out laughing as she carried Molly into the main
room. "So she's your baby, is she? Do you feed her?"

She shook her head. "Papa does that," she said, wriggling
out of Fig's grasp and hopping up on the sofa.

"Do you change her then?"

"Papa does that too."

"So what do you do?" she asked, holding her arms out to
Julian. "Here, let me have the baby," she told him. "You sit
down and put your feet up."

Julian handed Fiona over (with some trepidation, he admitted
to himself) before taking a seat on the love seats across from
them. "Molly helps bathe her," he told Fig.

"Oh, she does? She's going to have red hair, isn't she? She
has the eyebrows." She suddenly looked back up at Julian.
"How in the name of all things holy did you end up with two
redheaded children?"

"Don't ask me," he replied. "Some great-grandfather of mine,
I suppose. You should have seen her after she was born; she
had a big shock of hair just above her forehead. It fell out
about a month later."

She nodded. "Miles sent me a holo of her. Eduardo's hair did
the same thing." She turned to Molly. "Do you remember
Eddy?"

She shook her head. "Is he your baby?"

"He is, and he lives on Earth." Her voice was suddenly
muted. "You haven't seen him since you and your Daddy and
Papa visited us when you were just a little tiny baby
yourself. He's a lot bigger than you, though; he's almost
nine years old."

Molly peered up at her. "Does he live with you?"

"Molly..."

But Fig gave Julian a brief shake of her head. "It's all
right. No," she said to Molly, "Eddy lives with his daddy
and step-mommy in a place called Luanda, near where his
daddy and I grew up."

"Do they have animals there?" Molly asked through an
enormous yawn.

Fig made to answer her but Julian interrupted. "I think
somebody needs a nap before dinner," he said, trying not to
sound too severe.

Molly gave him a disgusted look. "But Auntie Fig's here!"

"And she's going to be here for at least another week, maybe
even longer," he told her. "Now go on. She'll be here later
on."

She pouted at him even as she held back what looked to be
another huge yawn, but she obeyed, hopping off the sofa.
"Are you going to have dinner with Daddy and Papa and me?"
she asked Fig.

"You bet I'll be here for dinner," she answered, giving
Molly a sad look and ruffling her hair again. "Now you go
have that nap."

They watched her run off to her bedroom. "How's Eddy
handling it all?" Julian asked her after Molly's door
closed, hoping she wouldn't notice the vagueness of his
words.

But she took the question in stride as she patted the
burbling Fiona on the back. "Not as badly as I would've
expected, I suppose. We tried to keep the divorce civil for
his sake. I wish I could've had him on the Venture, but it's
just not possible." She let out a sad sigh. "The kind of
help he needs simply isn't available on a starship,
especially one stationed in deep space."

He gave her a sympathetic smile, wondering privately what
type of help the child needed, when Fiona suddenly began to
cry. "I'll take her; she probably needs to be changed," he
said as he lifted Fiona out of the captain's arms and
carried her off to the nursery. "Was he happy to see you at
least?" he asked over his shoulder through the open door.

"I'm not even sure if he recognized me," she said from the
hallway. "I'm starting to understand why your parents took
you to Adigeon Prime."

He froze.

Breathe, he told himself: just change Fiona's diaper and
don't forget to breathe.

"Not that I would ever condone your parents' decision," she
hurried to add, "but Eddy could spend the rest of his life
dependent on others. I'm terrified of what might happen to
him when Alvaro and I pass on."

"Let's hope," he got out past the lump of panic that had
formed in his throat, "that won't be for another eighty
years or so. And they do have excellent programs on Earth
for disabled adults." He tossed the dirty diaper into the
recycler, then picked the now-sleeping Fiona up and carried
her to her crib. "I'm just going to put her down; she's
conked right out."

Fig chuckled. "You know what my mother always said: there's
them that eats and them that sleeps, and you got two that
sleeps."

"Not usually," he said as he gently rested Fiona in her
crib, placing her stuffed bear beside her before covering
her with a blanket and palming the light off. "Fi's still
recovering from the stomach bug that's been going around the
station. So is Molly, for that matter, which is probably why
she fell asleep on us."

He took a moment to wash and sanitize his hands, then
returned to the main room where Fig had retaken her seat.
"Can I get you something?" he asked. "I know you're probably
tired of raktajino."

She rolled her eyes. "That and blood wine and gagh and
gladst and - you know what I'd really like? A plain cup of
Earth coffee. No sugar, no milk, no spices, no live
worms..."

He chuckled. "One cup coming up." He ordered the coffee and
a tea for himself from the replicator, handing one cup to
her before retaking his seat.

"Mmmm...now this is good," she said after taking a sip. "You
don't have any more of that real stuff stashed around, do
you?"

"I think Miles used up the last of-" He suddenly dropped his
gaze to the cup in his hands. He hadn't thought of Miles in
five minutes: what kind of monster was he?

Her voice was light but full of concern. "I didn't ask in
the Infirmary - well, I didn't want to unnecessarily worry
Mr. Sisko - but how are you doing?" she asked.

"I've, um..." He snorted as he put down his cup, pushing his
self-flagellating thoughts aside. "I've had one spectacular
crying jag and I've spent most of the last 24 hours going
over sensor data until my eyes feel like they're crossed. I
just - I know the wormhole could pop back into existence at
any moment, but what if it doesn't? And I know I shouldn't
be defeatist, but - I don't even know how to tell Molly." He
sighed. "It was hard enough telling her about Ziyal."

"If it helps," she said gently, "I can tell you that there's
no right way to do it. And at this point there's really
nothing to tell her. For all she knows he's on a mission."

She was right, he knew, but he still felt like an abject
failure. "Have you had a chance to speak to Jake yet?" he
asked, changing the subject.

"I wish I could talk to Jake," she said. "I wish somebody
could. He's gone completely mute." Her gaze was distant as
she put her cup down. "I remember when he was a little boy.
He was such a bright, talkative child, so verbal. Jennifer
used to say he'd either end up in politics or advertising,
and she hoped he chose advertising because it was more
honest."

Julian smiled.

"But now...there's nothing in his eyes but rage. Of course I
can't blame him for that; after all, four days..." She
looked back at him. "Was it really her father who did it?"

"That's what she said, and the evidence supports it. Before
she died, she was able to tell us that his eyes had turned
red."

"Like yours were when you were possessed by that pah-wraith,
right?"

He digested that snippet of information with another jolt of
surprise; in his timeline Keiko had been the one possessed,
and from what he recalled she hadn't changed appearance.
"Yes, exactly like that," he finally said. "In fact, that's
the assumption Constable Odo's operating under."

Just then her combadge chirped. [[Petrov to Figueiredo.]]

She sat up, immediately assuming the aura of a cool,
competent Starfleet captain. "Figueiredo here."

[[Captain, Constable Odo of DS9 has just advised that
Ensigns Knoblauch and Rosenberg are in the station brig.]]

She ran a hand over her forehead and groaned. "What did they
do this time?"

[[The constable broke up a fight between them and two
Klingon officers from the IKS Rotarran,]] Petrov said. [[Dr.
King's looking after their injuries-]]

Figueiredo rolled her eyes.

[[-but they don't seem too badly hurt. Just a few broken
bones.]] The voice paused. [[The Klingons don't have a
scratch on them, so I don't think there'll be an incident.]]

"I'll be there as soon as I can," she said, shaking her
head. "Figueiredo out."

She turned to Julian as they both rose to their feet. "It
shouldn't take me too long to read those two the Riot Act
and find some appropriate Jefferies tubes for them to clean
out. If Molly wakes up before I return, tell her I'll be
back soon."

"Will do," he said with a grin. "Enjoy yourself."

She laughed. "Oh, I'm sure I will, the day they discover a
cure for Ensign Aggression Disorder. See you in a few."

Julian's smile faded as he gathered up the used cups and
saucers and deposited them back in the replicator. He'd
checked his permanent record as soon as he'd landed in this
timeline; there was no sign that anyone in Starfleet knew
about his enhancements. He'd told Miles about them after
they'd arrived in this timeline; if anyone had the right to
know, it was the person he was married to. But Figueiredo?

He realized he had some research to do. Who else knew? Was
she trying to blackmail him? Had he told her? He couldn't
imagine doing that.

He sat down at his terminal with a sigh and began to go
through his personal logs once again. There had to be a
clue...

---

It was likely the smallest senior staff meeting the station
had ever hosted. Julian sat at the conference room table
with Kira and Odo that morning, glowering at the padd in his
hands as he read the words on the screen.

"It's obscene," Odo grunted. "They've barely been gone two
days, and Admiral Ross already has a list of replacements
prepared."

"The Defiant's been off station for longer than this in the
past even with all of us aboard," Julian said, "and the
station hasn't spontaneously disintegrated. Starfleet even
has a Galaxy-class starship in dock. Why is he acting so
quickly?"

Kira shrugged. "Between the three of us, I blame Kai Winn.
That 'proclamation' of hers probably scared the hell out of
Starfleet. They've gotten so used to treating this place
like just another deep space installation that they forgot
this is a Bajoran station. Suddenly they're afraid that if
they don't get a permanent team here right away, we'll take
the place over and kick them out."

"Nice to know they place so much trust in me," Julian
muttered. Almost six years in Starfleet, eight years before
that in the Academy and Medical Academy - did they think
he'd hand over the station-

"The Saint of the Orphanages?" Kira said incredulously,
breaking into his thoughts. "The recipient of the Dailenium
Eye? The man who came *this* close to throwing his pips in
Ross's face because he didn't want to risk harming the
Prophets? Julian, of course they don't trust you: they think
you're on our side!"

His mind raced as he grasped for a reply. "Well, I suppose I
see your point..."

"I still don't know why the two of you didn't take up
Shakaar's offer," she continued, shaking her head in
apparent disbelief. "It's not like either of you have any
future-"

"Colonel," Odo interrupted, "I think we have to make the
wormhole our first priority at this point."

She looked at Odo, then sighed. "You're right," she said,
clicking a button on her padd. "About the wormhole,
Starfleet's advised that they're sending Dr. Lenara Kahn and
her team here from Earth. They're scheduled to arrive at
1300 today aboard the Asoka along with Admiral Ross. Dr.
Kahn's been working on a way to temporarily close the
wormhole; she's hoping she can use the same methods to
re-open it. Constable, I'm sending you to escort her team
out to the Denorios Belt. Commander Park from the Gryphon
will be going with them but I'd like a Bajoran
representative out there as well. I'll greet Admiral Ross.
He's also planning to attend Ziyal's funeral." She turned to
Julian. "Are you going?"

"For part of it," he replied. He wanted to take Molly, but
he had no illusions that a three-year-old girl could sit
through an hour-long funeral, let alone the full Bajoran
death chant.

"Shakaar's ordered a full honour guard, by the way," Kira
continued. "He and I are going to be there until at least
1800 hours. The vedek of the Capital Temple and her ranjen
are also coming up from Bajor to pay their respects, so
security will have to be tight. We don't need a repeat of
what happened to Vedek Parso last year."

"We'll be ready," Odo replied. "I've assigned a full detail
to our guests."

Julian gave Kira a puzzled look. "Why all the dignitaries?"

"Blame Vedek Halan," Kira said. "After Jake and Ziyal went
to see her she messaged the Kai to let her know about the
marriage, but she also 'accidentally' blind-copied every
member of the Vedek Assembly." She raised an eyebrow. "By
now the entire planet knows about it. Shakaar thought he
should attend the funeral as a show of respect to the
Emissary, and I'm guessing Ross feels the same way.
Starfleet's walking on palukoo shells right now and Ross
doesn't want to be seen visibly disrespecting Bajor. Not
that it matters in his case: he's lucky if Halan lets him in
the temple door."

He nodded silently. If relations between Bajor and the
Federation were that tenuous they would likely want to make
a show of it; on the other hand, he agreed with Kira that
Ross was the wrong man for the job under the circumstances,
especially considering what he'd ordered Julian to do in
this timeline.

When he'd gone over his permanent record the previous
afternoon he'd noticed a stern reprimand from the admiral
for refusing to detonate a bomb inside the wormhole that
could have killed the Prophets. He wasn't surprised to learn
that Bajor had viewed his refusal in a wholly positive light
and had even granted him their highest civilian decoration,
but he hadn't realized how angry Ross had been over the
matter. As the senior Starfleet officer assigned to Deep
Space Nine at the moment, though, he'd have to make a show
of polite respect to the man whether it was otherwise
advisable or not.

Kira clicked her padd again. "Vedek Merel is a different
matter. I suspect her intentions are more political than
respectful no matter what she says, and as one of the
leaders of the progressive faction she has as much of a
stake as anyone in publicly displaying her opposition to the
Kai. And after that comment she made yesterday...did you
hear?" she said to Julian. "Winn said 'we don't know if
Ziyal told the truth about what happened, so it would be
inappropriate for her to receive a Temple funeral'."

His jaw dropped. "She said-" and he bit back his next words.
Winn might be a flaming bitch but she was also the Kai of
Bajor, which meant he had to watch his words: he'd learned
that lesson all too well in the past. "Perhaps someone
should advise the Kai that the evidence proves otherwise,"
he finally said after he had managed to control his temper.
"Dukat's fingerprints and his DNA were on Ziyal's throat
where he grabbed her."

Odo snorted. "His fingerprints were also on the doors to the
Orb's case, although we haven't been able to determine how
he arrived on the station. Even without physical evidence,
I'd prefer a credible witness's dying words to mere
supposition, and Bajoran law agrees with me."

"I know," Kira said, "and Vedek Halan agrees with you,
but..." She gave the two of them a grim look. "The next 26
hours aren't going to be a lot of fun for any of us, but
let's remind our staffs to be professional and respectful to
our guests - all our guests. Jake Sisko's gone through
enough already; he doesn't need a diplomatic furor to break
out between Bajor and the Federation."

"I'll make sure the Starfleet staff keep themselves in
check," Julian said, suspecting that Kira's words had been
as much for himself as for anyone else.

"And I'll speak to my constables and have them pass on the
word to the Bajoran civilians - those who are still on the
station," Odo added.

"That's all I can ask. Odo, I'll let you get to work. If I
could speak with you, Julian?"

Odo rose from the table and stalked out the door. "What is
it?" Julian asked.

She looked down at her hands, then spoke. "I think you
should take some time off."

"Now?" he said. "With the Defiant gone?"

"I'm concerned about you," she said, giving him a searching
look. "How long were you up last night looking through the
sensor records?"

He squirmed in his chair. "Not that long - I mean, a few
hours, but..."

"Julian," she said in a patient but firm tone, "I checked
your terminal records. You were online from 2130 straight
through to 0545, and during that time you accessed 243
different files from the sensor directories. The night
before it was 183 files. I can't have you working yourself
into the ground; it's not good for your patients and it's
not good for the station."

He sighed. He didn't like being spied on, but he also didn't
like the implication that his lack of sleep automatically
made him ineffective as a physician. But she was the boss,
and from her tone of voice it didn't sound like she was
about to brook any dissent from him.

"I checked your personnel record as well," she continued.
"You have over six months' worth of accumulated leave, at
least if Captain Sisko's records are accurate. I want you to
take a few days off. Miles's parents are arriving this
afternoon on the Asoka, and I know they'd like to spend some
time with you. Right now with the Gryphon and the Venture in
dock we have enough backup so that if an emergency does
occur, we can handle it."

"But the epidemic-" he began.

"I've spoken with Admiral Quinn and she agrees with me," she
said, interrupting him. "She told me she was very impressed
with how quickly you isolated the virus, but there are 39
researchers on Starbase 375 working around the clock to find
a cure. In fact, she told me that if I didn't order you to
take leave she would, and for longer than three days."

He held up his hands, conceding defeat. "I still have to
meet with Admiral Ross tomorrow morning," he pointed out.
"But if you insist I take the rest of the next three days
off..."

"I do." She thumbed the padd. "You're off from 1200 this
afternoon until 0800 on Wednesday. And I don't want to find
that you've spent all of it studying the sensor records,
either, okay?"

He sighed. "All right."

"Good. Dismissed."

He left the conference room and returned to the Infirmary.
Girani wasn't going to like her new schedule, he suspected,
and neither was he.

---

"Michael, Aoife!" Julian called as they came down the ramp.
"How was your-"

"Good heavens, she's such a big, big girl!" Aoife said, all
but tearing Fiona from his arms. "Look, Michael, Fiona
already has a tooth! Oh, don't you look good in red..."

"I'm lookin' at this little sweetheart over here, love," her
husband said as he swung a giggling Molly around the cramped
corridor. "Have you ever seen so much gorgeous red hair in
all your life?"

"And such a cute little button nose, yes you do-"

"-yes, you're a sweet darlin'-"

Julian took a deep breath and waited for Michael and Aoife
O'Brien to finish fussing over the girls and notice his
existence. After a few minutes of Michael exclaiming how
much Molly looked like a little angel and Aoife cooing over
Fiona's big green eyes, though, he realized that the moment
might not come, at least not in his lifetime.

"Um," he began again, "how was your-"

"Aren't you the sweetest babby-"

"You can count all the way to three? Well, I-"

"-the cutest little thing I've-"

"-you're ready to run for Miss Ireland, aren't you, love-"

An older woman in vedek's robes snuck a look at Julian's
face and quickly turned to hide her face as she passed them,
her shoulders shaking in suppressed laughter.

Wonderful, Julian thought; I'm reduced to entertaining the
clergy. "Michael," he started again in a considerably louder
voice, "how was your trip?"

"Hm? Oh, just fine," Miles's father said as he looked up
distractedly. "We made a fair time out here, at least from
what the captain said. Three days quicker than it used to
take." He suddenly took in Molly's funeral dress and
Julian's dress blues; the colour quickly drained from his
face. "Why's the lass in black?" he suddenly asked Julian.
"There hasn't been-"

"Julian-" Aoife began.

"No news," he hastened to say. "I'd have messaged you if I'd
heard anything, you know that."

Aoife swallowed and took a heaving breath. "Of course you
would have." She looked at Molly's dress again, then frowned
at her husband. "Her dress is green - bottle green."

Julian reached over and tucked a stray lock of hair behind
Molly's ear. "A young lady who lives on the station passed
away last week," he told them. "Her funeral is this
afternoon, and Molly and I are going. And yes, it's green;
green is the colour of mourning on Bajor, at least for
children."

"Thank Go-" Michael began, but interrupted himself. "I
shouldn't say that; it's a sad thing no matter what. I just
assumed-"

"Who was she?" Aoife asked as she not-so-subtly elbowed her
husband.

"Her name was Ziyal. She babysat the girls in the evenings.
In fact, she was just married a few days before she," and he
lowered his voice with a significant look at Molly, "had to
go to heaven."

The girl nodded. "Jake put a baby in her tummy," she said in
a sudden loud voice that carried through the Promenade, "and
they got the vedek to-"

"MOLLY!" he cried. "We'll tell Granny and Granda about it at
home, all right?"

"'kay," she whimpered, wrapping her arms around Michael's
neck and burying her head in his shoulder. Good job, Julian
told himself, as he imagined kicking himself in the arse:
make your daughter cry in front of your in-laws. That'll set
their minds at ease.

He picked up their bags (and almost staggered; Aoife had
apparently decided to bring along a shipment of bricks) and
ushered them toward the turbolift for the Habitat Ring. As
soon as they entered the lift, Molly wiggled out of her
grandfather's arms. "Are you comin' to the funeral, Granda?"
she asked him.

Michael shrugged. "Well, I-"

Julian crouched down. "Molly, they just got here. They're
tired and they want to spend some time with your baby
sister. This is the first time they've ever seen her. Now
you and I are going to go to the funeral, just for a little
while, then we'll come back and you can spend time with
them, too. If that's okay with Granny and Granda," he added,
looking up at them.

"That's not a problem," Michael quickly assured him. "That's
what we're here for."

"But-" Aoife began, then closed her mouth and nodded. "Of
course."

He rose to his feet, wondering faintly what Aoife had been
about to say, when the turbolift door opened. "Just this
way," he said, picking up their bags again.

"Oh! This is-" Aoife began as she walked through the door of
their unit and looked around, "-this is very...interesting.
Isn't it, Michael?"

The elder O'Brien cast his gaze around their front room,
apparently confused as to what his wife found 'interesting'
about the plain taupe walls and grey carpet. "I suppose," he
said, shrugging.

"Molly, go wash your hands," Julian said. "We have to leave
in a few minutes."

She sighed, but left for the bathroom.

"Can I offer you something? Tea, coffee, something else?" he
asked his in-laws.

"That 'something else' would go down right smooth after that
boneshaker of a trip, I'll tell you that," Michael groaned
as he dropped onto the sofa like a lead weight, propping his
feet up on the coffee table - just like Miles did most
evenings.

He pushed the memory away.

Aoife glared at her husband. "Stop your bitchin', it wasn't
that bad. He's always makin' a mountain out of a molehill,"
she said to Julian, who was by then rummaging through the
top cabinet for the open bottle of Bushmill's. "In fact, we
had a very nice trip here. They gave us a comfortable double
cabin and Captain Levesque even had us at the captain's
table for dinner last night. We also met this lovely young
woman as well, Lenara Kahn. She told us she was coming here
to reopen the wormhole, although her explanation as to how
she was going to accomplish that feat was quite beyond me.
I'm an interior designer, not a physicist. Isn't that right,
sunshine," she crooned to Fiona, who was staring wide-eyed
at her shiny earrings.

Julian brought over a glass and the bottle to the sofa,
pouring Michael a healthy shot before handing it to him and
placing the bottle on the coffee table. If their shuttle had
really been that bad, he could probably use a refill or two.
"And what can I get you, Aoife," he said. "A cup of-"

But she interrupted him. "Michael," she said, "it's not even
2 PM. Must you?"

"Come on, love, it's 5:00 somewhere," he grumbled as he took
a sip.

Julian held back a grin; this was how he and Miles must
appear to their friends sometimes. The irritable one and the
- well, he wasn't much like Aoife, or at least he was
beginning to hope he wasn't, but still.

And suddenly a wave of grief slammed into him.

He turned away for just a second, covering the kick he'd
just got to his gut by walking down the hallway. "You
finished, bunny?" he called to Molly through the bathroom
door. "We have to leave-"

"I'M PEEING!"

He sucked in his lips and walked back to the front room,
where Aoife had just deposited Fiona on the floor and was
urging her to crawl. "I'm afraid Fi's not quite there yet,"
he told his mother-in-law as he crouched down beside her.
"She's got rolling down but not crawling."

Mother-in-law, it suddenly hit him. I have a mother-in-law.

"I'm only encouraging her," Aoife said. "You should have
seen my Harold when he was a wee one. Crawling at six
months, walking at ten - he was a regular Fergus O'Gheoghan,
he was."

Michael peered down at her from over the arm of the sofa.
"And when did Harold win the Carrington then, love?"

She glared at him. "Just because Harold hasn't won a major
Federation award doesn't mean I can't be proud of him." She
rose to her feet, wiping her hands on the front of her
trousers as she peered down the hallway toward the bathroom
door. "Julian," she said in a low voice, "about the, um,
funeral..."

Julian, who was still confused by Michael's mention of the
Carrington Award (had he won it in this timeline? He'd lost
in his own), gave his mother-in-law a puzzled look. "What
about it?"

"Do you really think it's wise for Molly to go?" she asked,
a hand on his forearm. "The girl's so young; don't you think
it'll confuse her?"

"I think she'll be fine," he assured her. "Of course I'm not
going to keep her there for all four hours, but I think it
would be good for her to see how adults celebrate a lost
life."

Aoife was still distressed. "But with her father, what's
happened," she pleaded, her voice dropping to a whisper,
"won't she think it's for him?"

He sighed as a little voice in the back of his head
whispered 'Round One'. "Aoife," he said, keeping his voice
low, "she's my daughter and she's going with me. We won't be
there for very long anyway. And Miles has been away on
missions for longer than this before; Molly doesn't have any
idea where he's-"

Just then Molly emerged from the bathroom, skipping back to
the main room. "Ready to go, honey?" he said in a bright
voice. "Did you sanitize your hands?"

The girl nodded her head. "We have to go say bye-bye to
Ziyal and the baby, Granda," she told Michael, who had
reached over to stroke her hair. "They got hurt really badly
and even Papa couldn't help."

"Your pa's a clever man," he replied. "If he couldn't help,
I venture nobody could."

Aoife picked Fiona up from the floor, sighing as she gave
him a disapproving look. "If that's what you think is best,"
she said to Julian, "we'll see you when you return."

---

It had only been thirty minutes, but he suspected Molly had
already set the pan-galactic record for fidgeting.

Ziyal's funeral was for the most part a typical Bajoran
affair. It had begun with an emotional eulogy by Vedek Halan
that had most of the attendants (including Julian and Molly)
shedding tears, followed by a short reminiscence from
Colonel Kira that had almost everyone laughing. The vedek of
the Capital Temple, whom Julian was surprised to recognize
as the woman who had laughed at him earlier, was now at the
altar pronouncing a prayer in classical Bajoran.

"Rakaja ut shala morala," the vedek intoned, her voice clear
and strong. "Emaboru kana uranak. Ralanon Sisko det Tora
Ziyal en Sisko den Tora Deborah propeh va..."

So Jake had named the baby after his grandmother, he
thought. He'd known they were planning to keep the child;
he'd found traces of the standard Bajoran medicinal herbs in
Ziyal's bloodstream during the autopsy, and the very fact
that they'd eloped had spoken to their intentions. Julian
only hoped that the act of giving the child a name helped
the young man deal with his loss. It was all too easy for
well-meaning friends and family to ignore the loss of a
child in instances like this. Perhaps having the name on the
program and in the vedek's prayers would remind them that
Jake had lost more than just his bride of four days.

As the vedek droned on, Julian took the opportunity to sneak
a look around the chapel. Most of the Bajoran attendees were
either staring into the lamp at the front of the room or
were sitting quietly, eyes closed, hands clasped in their
laps. At the back of the room, Admiral Ross and his aide
stood, separated from the rest of the mourners by at least
two metres. Nobody would stand near them: Ross was being
shunned.  He wished he could join in the sentiment, but he
had to spend most of the next morning with the man going
over various Starfleet-related matters.

Molly squirmed again; he lay a gentle hand on her shoulder
to calm her and turned his gaze back to the front of the
chapel. Jake was, of course, the principal mourner, and had
been treated with the utmost respect by everyone from the
lowliest prylar up to First Minister Shakaar, but for all
Julian could tell the young man might as well be dead
himself. He didn't cry, didn't look around, didn't scream
and shout. He just sat between his grandfather and Kasidy,
his eyes closed, not moving a muscle. Only once did Julian
catch him expressing some emotion: at one point during Vedek
Merel's prayer he had opened his eyes, just for a second,
and had given the dark Orb a hard stare, his eyes full of
unspoken rage. Julian still remembered the young boy whom
he'd first seen hanging off the top level of the Promenade
flicking sand peas onto the heads of unsuspecting station
residents, but now he also saw a man older than his tender
years, bent and bowed with grief, unable to accept the worst
thing a man could face.

The worst, he thought.

He suddenly imagined himself at the front of the chapel,
with Miles's parents on either side of him and his children
on their laps. Would I look like Jake does right now? he
thought. Would I just sit there, without moving a muscle?
Would I cry? Would I scream? Would I try to pick up the
vedek and hurl her through the bloody-

He took a deep breath and willed himself to remain calm. He
had Molly, he had Fiona, and he had the very real
possibility that the wormhole would open at any time and
bring Miles home.

Molly wiggled again as the prylars assembled for the death
chant. Julian suspected she'd had enough and quietly led her
out of the chapel and into the antechamber. "How are you
doing?" he asked her once the door closed behind them.

She stuck her lower lip out. "Everybody's sad again."

"That's right," he replied. "They're all sad because they'll
never see Ziyal again. Are you sad?"

She nodded as she clung to him.

"Why don't we go home?" he suggested. "You can ask Granny to
replicate you some cookies."

As they left the temple, he looked around the deserted
Promenade. The shops were closed, the corridors empty -
fitting for a desolate day like this one, he thought. There
had been a time when this place had been an exciting new
frontier to him, full of mystery and intrigue and new
experiences. He'd relished the charm of the unfamiliar
language and ideas, but he hadn't paid a bit of attention to
the people behind that superficial charm. Exoticism, he
thought, his mind spiralling back to the art classes he'd
taken at Harrow: the representation of a culture as nothing
more than entertainment or spectacle for another. The
Cardassians had exploited the Bajoran culture (or what
they'd left of it) in that way, seeing it as a simpler, more
naive society than their own. He'd been guilty of the same
offence. In fact, it had only been in the past year that
he'd begun to appreciate Bajoran society as a synthetic
whole and not merely a collection of oddities. The station
and Bajor had somehow become home, and the prayers of the
vedek he'd heard today had seemed no more simple and naive
(or exotic and mysterious for that matter) than the calls of
the East London muezzin or the bells of Bow Church.

Maybe Kira was right: maybe he was going native.

They entered the turbolift, and an obviously sleepy Molly
held her arms up to him. He lifted her up, and within
seconds she had drifted off, her head on his shoulder.

He thought again about Ziyal's death as the turbolift door
opened. It hadn't just devastated her loved ones; it had
been a deliberate act of cruelty meant to cause pain to
every resident of the station. But what could you expect
from someone like-

And as he entered his quarters, and as his eyes suddenly
took in the transformed front room, the little voice in the
back of his head suddenly whispered 'Round Two'.

The walls of the main room had been recoloured a bright red,
while the side cabinets had become an almost painfully
intense shade of blue. An enormous pointillist portrait of
Miles's face - at least 1.5 metres wide, he estimated -
adorned the far wall. Over a dozen garish papier-mâché birds
hung from the ceiling; they were surrounded by a festoon of
glittery, translucent green fabric that was draped around
the top of the walls. The sofa and loveseat had been covered
by the type of pseudo-Persian blanket he usually associated
with tacky old holovids of the Arabian Nights, while the
chair had some kind of slinky black fabric thrown
haphazardly over it. Strangest of all was the glowing,
writhing fluorescent gold sculpture - if he could even call
it that; for all he knew it could be a new life form -
adorning his coffee table.

He looked down; at least she hadn't changed the rug.

In the corner he spotted Michael standing near the
replicator shaking with laughter. "She's just in the
fresher," Michael said, chortling. "If you could see the
prize expression on your face, lad..."

He didn't reply; he just stood there, his mind racing. How
could she do this? And how could she do this in less than an
hour?

Just then Aoife returned to the living room. "Julian!" she
cried, waking up Molly, who looked around and instantly
stiffened in his grasp. "So what do you think of-"

"AIEEEEE! AIEEEEE! NO!!!!!" Molly jumped out of Julian's
arms and ran to her room.

He chased after her only to find her bedroom similarly
transformed and Molly under the bed. "Bunny, what's-"

"NO ODO!"

Odo? But of course, he thought with a sigh, as two and two
suddenly collided to make five. "It's the birds," he said,
looking up at Aoife, who was standing in the doorway giving
him a puzzled look. "She's afraid of them."

"Birds?" Aoife repeated, disbelieving, as Michael began to
pull down the papier-mâché creations. "Now who would be
afraid of pretty little birds?"

Molly was by now merely sobbing in blind terror. Julian
checked her again, realizing from the smell that he'd have
to get the carpet under the bed cleaned, and suppressed a
sigh of frustration. "Our chief of security is a
shapeshifter," he explained. "One day he apprehended a
suspect by turning himself into a bird and swooping down on
him. Unfortunately, he flew right over Molly's head and it
spooked her. Since then, she's been terrified of birds or of
anything that looks like one."

"They're all gone," Michael called from the front room.
"Threw 'em in the recycler."

"You hear that?" he said lightly, reaching between Molly and
the bed to rub her back. "All gone."

She gave him a look of misery and fear, then, almost before
Julian could hold his arms out, she scooted into his grasp,
burying her face in his shoulder as she continued to cry. He
carefully inspected her bedroom for any other sign of avian
invasion before carrying her out and down the hallway toward
the bathroom. He snuck a look into Fiona's room to make
sure-

-and the painting of Keiko and the original Molly was gone.

He spun on his heels. "The painting," he gasped, "the one of
the mother and daughter! Where is it?"

Aoife rolled her eyes. "That piece of kitsch? I hadn't got
around to recycling it yet-"

"Oh, thank God!" Julian cried, almost falling to his knees
in relief.

Michael gave him a worried look. "What's wrong?"

He glared at Aoife. "That 'piece of kitsch', as you call it,
is the only image in existence of - of two old friends of
Miles's. They died last year. He would have been dev-" and
he stopped himself, clamping his mouth shut: he really
didn't want to give either of them the wrong, or in this
case the right, idea.

Aoife's face paled. "I - I didn't realize. Sweet Mary!
Michael, where's that painting?"

"Right here," he said, pulling it out from behind the sofa.
"I put all of it back there," he told Julian with a knowing
look. "I didn't know what you wanted to keep."

He took the painting from him with his free hand and propped
it up near the door of the nursery, then carried Molly off
to the bathroom. Before he began to remove her now-filthy
dress, slip, tights, and underwear, he took a moment to
catch his breath. How could she-

And then he snorted at his own idiocy. How could you, he
asked himself. How could you yell at someone who had spent
three days on a crowded shuttle just to help you out? And
her adventure in decorating hadn't even been that bad.

Well, all right, he conceded; it had been that bad. And they
were his quarters, his and Miles's, not theirs. But still...

"Papa?" Molly said, tugging at his sleeve.

"Sorry, bunny," he said. "I was just thinking." He helped
Molly undress, then started the sonic shower for her and
threw her sodden clothes into the recycler.

But his mind kept going back to that incident. He certainly
had over-reacted, he told himself. Even if he had been in
the right about his and Miles's personal property, he
shouldn't have yelled at her.

If there was anything he did know about families, it was
that sometimes you had to apologize even if you were in the
right, and this was one of those times.

He helped Molly change into fresh clothing and put her down
for her nap, then returned to the main room, which (and
again he didn't know how) had been returned to its original
colours, although the painting and the pulsating yellow
sculpture hadn't been moved. "Aoife," he started, "I'm
sorry. I shouldn't have been so adamant. It's just-"

"No," she interrupted him, waving a hand as Michael watched
her expectantly. "I'm the one who should apologize. I got so
enthused with the idea of fillin' up a blank space that I
forgot they were *your* rooms. I shouldn't have tried to
throw out your possessions, and I should have asked you
first. I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," Julian said.

The three of them shared a look of mutual understanding;
obviously Michael had had a word with her while he'd been
looking after Molly. "Listen," he said, changing the topic,
"I'm sure you'd like to have a rest, so why don't you unpack
and the five of us will go out for dinner tonight?"

"You mean Bajoran food?" Michael asked suspiciously. "Is
that spicy?"

"Michael can't have anything too spicy," Aoife explained.
"It gives him gas."

Oh wonderful. "We'll go to Quark's," he said. "He has an
extensive selection of Earth-style food on his menu. How
does 1900 sound?"

"That'll give us time to get a few winks in," Michael said,
nodding as they headed to the spare room. "I could sure use
it after today."

So could I, Julian thought as his gaze returned to the
writhing yellow sculpture: so could I.

---

Julian returned to the Infirmary after his leave to find it
as deserted as it had been before he left. He suspected Kira
simply hadn't wanted him to break down on the job, but since
the bulk of the station's civilian population had decamped
there wasn't really a need for a fully manned Infirmary. He
hadn't even had to squire around Ross: the admiral, shocked
(and, Julian suspected, a little offended) by the Bajorans'
attitude toward him, had fled the station after the funeral.
An Admiral Somar was arriving in four days' time from Earth
in what Kira sneeringly called 'an attempt to placate the
locals'. He wished the man luck.

On the medical side of things, the researchers at Starbase
375 had cobbled together a treatment regimen for the
meningitis consisting of eight different drugs. It wasn't a
cure and it wouldn't work as a vaccine, but Admiral Quinn
had told him that her team thought it would at the very
least stop the spread of the virus and reduce the death
rate. Julian had instantly relayed the good news to the
Bajoran Health Ministry, and in the past 48 hours the
fatality rate had shrunk from 35% to less than 1%. He still
considered that too high, though. If he could only locate
the source of the virus, he thought as he took a seat at one
of the main Infirmary terminals, he might be able to devise
a quick and dirty vaccine.

Try as he might, though, he couldn't remember where he'd
seen that blasted xanthine molecule before. He cursed his
apparently malfunctioning eidetic memory and began another
search in the database, widening the search parameters to
look for any instances of uracil-xanthine combinations in
RNA.

As the search ran, his mind wandered back to his in-laws.
Michael O'Brien hadn't given him much trouble, but that was
mainly because it virtually took a tri-cobalt bomb to get
him to do anything at all. He was content to carry out his
wife's orders (and orders they were, he had found), but he
also took the frequent opportunity to complain about her
behind her back. Julian wasn't sure if he liked that. He
did, however, appreciate that unlike many men of his age and
culture, Michael didn't seem to mind that his son had
married a man. Of course, that had been explained after he'd
brought out a wad of family holos for Molly to look at and
Julian had discovered that Michael and his five sisters were
themselves the children of two men, a heavy spaceship
mechanic and a classical pianist, who had just celebrated
their 75th wedding anniversary with a week's vacation on
Risa.

Aoife was a different story. There was no doubt that she was
a good-hearted woman, but Julian suspected she had got so
much into the habit of running the show that she forgot that
it wasn't always her show to run. Or perhaps, he mused, she
had always been that way, and she and Michael were simply
perfectly matched. In either event, Julian had spent the
better part of the past three days in the most polite and
mutually respectful territorial struggle he'd ever been in.
She moved Fiona's crib to Molly's room 'so the girls would
learn to love one another'; he moved it back 'so Molly could
sleep'. He gave Molly cherries for dinner; Aoife worried out
loud that she might accidentally swallow a pit (in
replicated cherries, at that). She voiced a concern about
the cleanliness of the front room rug, so he ordered the
cleaning bot to shampoo it - but of course the bot 'didn't
really do a proper job'. And so on, and so on ad nauseam.

And then at 0300 that morning he'd awoken to the sound of
their bed rhythmically banging against the connecting wall.
He supposed he couldn't fault them for actually expressing
their love; he just wished they hadn't felt the need to
express it thirty centimetres away from him.

He had just got up from his chair and was about to replicate
himself a cup of tea when his terminal beeped to advise the
search was complete. He sat back down and brought up the
four samples the search had located. One, from a virus that
normally infected fungi, had been collected on Nimbus IV, a
planet in the Romulan Neutral Zone, but as the planet's
ecosystem had been destroyed by a collision with an asteroid
50 years earlier he put that possibility aside for now. The
second was common to Kostolain mosaic viruses, but the other
features of that virus family made it different enough from
his sample that he dismissed the possibility. The third,
from a virus that affected Pycan space moths, was much
closer. He saved that file, then opened the fourth sample.

And his eyes flew open.

It was from a pneumonia virus found on the Vorta home world,
and it was almost identical. The only difference was a
single oxygen atom.

Hell and damnation.

He messaged Admiral Quinn and Colonel Kira before saving his
work not just in the database but also on an isolinear rod
which he pocketed. If the epidemic had been initiated by
Dominion operatives, they could be anywhere, even on the
station.

His thoughts were interrupted by a voice. "Doctor, I'm
wondering if I could ask for your help with something."

He looked up to find Joseph Sisko standing beside the
nearest biobed rubbing his left shoulder, a look of worry on
his face. "Of course, sir," he said as he grabbed a
tricorder and hurried to his side. "What seems to be the
problem?"

"It's the strangest thing," he said. "I was just in the
Replimat having lunch and suddenly I felt this shooting pain
down my left arm. It felt just like that angina attack I had
a few months ago, but the surgeon back on Earth told me that
getting a new heart would clear that right up."

Julian frowned as he ran the scanner over Joseph's upper
body. "Have you been carrying heavy items around recently,
sir?" he asked after he'd read the results.

"No, not really," Joseph replied with a shrug, "but I did
help Jake get to bed last night. That sedative your Dr.
Girani gave him put him out like a light and he could barely
stand up. Not to say it didn't help," he added. "He finally
got a few hours' sleep."

"I asked because you've strained a muscle in your shoulder,
and that muscle is pinching one of the nerves that runs down
your arm, which is what's causing the pain." Julian turned
to Okuna. "Can you get me the myoregenerator and 0.5 ccs of
methedesamine, please?"

She nodded. "Right away."

"Methedesamine?" Joseph said, his tongue tripping over the
word as he eased himself onto the biobed. "What's that?"

"A skeletal muscle relaxant. Once it begins to work and the
muscle fibres relax, I'll use the regenerator to fix the
strain and you should be as good as new." He lowered his
voice. "I received your medical records from Dr. Woo in New
Orleans, by the way; this won't interfere with any of the
medications you're taking."

"Thanks." As Julian injected him and switched the
regenerator on, he sighed. "No news, I take it?"

He shook his head as he began to run the regenerator over
Joseph's shoulder. "I've gone out there with a
shuttlecraft," he said, unable to curb the frustration in
his voice, "I've examined the readings we've taken with the
station sensors four times, I've even asked my father-in-law
to go over them, but - nothing. To tell you the truth I'm
considering going after Dukat myself. With a hatchet,
preferably."

Joseph snorted. "Colonel Kira mentioned last night that she
was considering more or less the same thing. I can't help
but wonder, though, if everyone's looking at this from the
wrong angle."

"What do you mean? Hold up your arm, please."

"I was talking to a ranjen," he continued, raising his left
arm, "or at least I think that's what his title was, last
night. I went to the Temple to see if the vedek could talk
to Jake, help him - well, not get over it, but..." He shook
his head. "You know, having to make a decision like that is
about the worst thing that can happen to a man, and him
being so young - I can't even begin to imagine what's going
on in his mind. Anyway, the ranjen showed me the orb Ziyal
had been standing in front of when her father killed her. He
mentioned that all nine of the orbs went dark right at that
exact moment."

Julian looked up. "I hadn't realized that."

"I don't think they did either at first." He gave Julian a
puzzled look. "What are these orbs anyway?"

"They're mainly composed of dailenium, but other than that I
don't think anyone knows what they actually are," he replied
as he ran the regenerator over the anterior section of the
deltoid. "The Bajorans haven't allowed our scientists to
study them, and even if they did I suspect they're far
beyond our understanding. They're somewhat like
communications devices in that they allow users to connect
with the Prophets, at least when they're working. Most of
them cause visions or hallucinations in the people using
them."

"Like a - what do they call that damn thing - an akoonah,
right? One of those hallucinogenic devices the Navajo
Indians use out in Arizona."

"They're like akoonahs in a way, but they have other powers
as well. Some of them have the ability to transport matter
through time and space." He lowered the regenerator. "You
can put your arm down now."

"Well, couldn't we use one of those to go back before...but
they've gone dark. Damn." He scowled at his hand as he
flexed it, then looked back up at Julian. "You know, I'm
seriously thinking of taking Jake down to Bajor. Everything
on this station reminds him of her, and he needs something
to occupy his mind."

"What are you planning?" Julian asked, wondering privately
if Jake was in any shape to have his mind occupied, or if
the elder Sisko was in any shape to accompany him alone.

"That ranjen - he said he managed the Capital Temple down in
Dakhur. Owin Grea, I think was his name. He seemed to take
my questions pretty well, and he said the Temple had a
library. Maybe if I took Jake down there and did a little
research on these orbs, we might find something."

"It wouldn't hurt to try," Julian replied. "The Capital
Temple is one of the centres of the Bajoran progressive
movement; they're pro-Federation so I suspect they'd welcome
you with open arms, especially considering your connection
with Captain Sisko."

"There is that," Joseph said. "It isn't a bad idea, if I do
say so myself." He gave Julian an appraising look. "Listen,
why don't you come down with us? Jake would probably - but
you've got those girls, don't you?"

He grinned; he'd been debating volunteering. "Actually, my
in-laws have been here since Sunday," he said, "so I could
probably arrange to take an evening off, if only to monitor
Jake. Perhaps you're right: if he weren't constantly
reminded of her-"

"-he might get out of this damned funk he's in," Joseph
finished. "And then somebody *could* help him."

Julian walked Joseph to the front door. "If you have any
further pain, don't hesitate to contact the Infirmary, all
right?"

Joseph nodded. "I'll let you know after I've contacted this
Ranjen Owin and found out when he can fit us in. I don't
know how long it'll take, but if you can get one of those
runabouts - how long does it take to travel to Bajor?"

"With the new propulsion systems, no more than a few
minutes," he replied, smiling faintly. His late-night search
through his personal logs in search of an explanation for
Fig's knowledge of his enhancements had revealed that Miles
had been the one to figure out the Jem'Hadar warp system and
apply it to Federation technology. "Comm me when you've made
an appointment and I'll do my best to be there."

"I'll do that. Now I have to go make sure that Jake gets off
that skinny ass of his and comes along with us."

"Good luck."

Joseph nodded. "I'll probably need it."

As he returned to his office to continue his research into
the virus, Julian shook his head. Luck was probably the one
thing they were all desperately short of at the moment.

---

Julian arrived the next afternoon at the docking ring to
find Joseph and Jake waiting for him. "I'm sorry I'm late,"
he said. "I forgot to check in my in-laws with the daycare,
and it took longer than I'd expected."

"We just got here a minute ago ourselves," Joseph said as
they entered the runabout. He turned to Jake. "Did you bring
the padds?"

The young man nodded apathetically, gesturing to the
messenger bag slung over one shoulder. Julian couldn't help
but wince at the lack of affect in his eyes; he'd seen
people mourn like this before, of course, but not for so
long or with such an obvious disdain for the world around
them. His instinct to counsel the young man had to wait,
though: he was in no shape to listen.

He instead checked that Joseph and Jake were strapped
securely into their seats, then initiated the runabout's
takeoff sequence and steered the little vessel off the
docking pad. "Hold on," he told them. "Going to warp."

"Holy mother of God!" Joseph blurted out as the planet went
from a tiny dot to an enormous green and white ball in the
span of a split second.

Julian adjusted the descent to bring them safely to the
surface. "Fast, isn't it?" he said to the elder Sisko.

"Fast doesn't even begin to describe it," Joseph murmured.
"The planet just popped up."

He grinned as he connected to Bajor's net and accessed the
local map server. "We're about 20 kilometres from the
Capital Temple-"

Jake made a sound of irritation.

"-and there it is," he said, pointing it out to them as they
swooped down on the northern sector of the city of Dakhur.

The Capital Temple was one of the few buildings the
Cardassians had left intact in the city during the pullout,
but they hadn't done it out of religious awe or respect:
they simply hadn't cared enough by that point to expend the
energy needed to destroy a building with two-metre-thick
lead-reinforced stone walls. The main problem the caretakers
of the temple had faced upon regaining control of it hadn't
been repairing any damage as much as it had been handling
the significant pollution that had been allowed to
accumulate over the Occupation. Before the Cardassians had
arrived the rock had been treated yearly with a sealant that
prevented the lead embedded in the rocks from leaching out,
but of course such a luxury hadn't been available during the
latter years of the Occupation when the temple had sat
empty. It had taken two years for the temple maintenance
crew to get rid of all the lead dust. The only bright side
of the entire mess had been that the lead deposits had
served as a preservation agent, preventing the fragile
ancient paper records from deteriorating.

Starfleet had sent a number of document specialists in
(after the building had been declared safe) to catalogue and
copy the library's contents, but even after five years
they'd only got about halfway through. Now he and Joseph had
to somehow plough through the millions of books, scrolls,
and threaded manuscripts and hope that whatever fragment of
text held the clue they were looking for had been catalogued
- if it was even there in the first place.

They parked the runabout in a community lot about 500 metres
south of the Temple and hopped aboard a hover-tram for the
rest of the trip, Jake two steps behind him and Joseph.

"Owin Grea said he'd be waiting for us," Joseph told Julian
as the tram deposited themacrossthe street from the temple.
"We're lucky Dakhur is six hours behind the station; it's
only late morning here, so we should have at least five
hours until the library closes."

They entered the temple and, after bowing respectfully to
the Flame of Kooemba, they took the stairs down to the
library located (as all temple libraries were) on the lowest
level of the building.

As they entered the vast, low-ceilinged room that smelled
like every library Julian had ever visited, a tall,
dignified man glided up to them, his close-cropped grey hair
and reserved demeanour giving him the air of a butler in an
old holovid. "Gentlemen," he said, his voice low but
pleasant, "welcome. I hope you're able to locate the wisdom
you seek."

"Thank you for allowing us to use your facilities, Ranjen
Owin," Joseph said in return. "I looked through your
catalogue last night, and there are some books I'd like to
check first..."

As he and the ranjen went off to discuss the matter, Julian
turned to Jake. "How are you doing?"

He shrugged, then turned away. Julian considered scanning
him, but decided against it.

"Julian, Jake!" Joseph called from the far end of the room.
"Come on over."

They followed him into a separate room containing a large
study table. Ranjen Owin, who was standing by the table, had
opened a heavy paper book and was searching through it.

Joseph gestured to a large pile of books standing on the
side table. "Mr. Owin says here that the Orbs are mentioned
about a hundred times in the Prophecies, maybe even more. I
thought we'd start by going through these ones first."

"The relevant pages are bookmarked," Owin added as he
carefully placed the open book on the table. "I understand
you have a translator? Or do you require one?"

"We have a device that can translate from Forrian to modern
Bajoran and Standard Earth English," Julian said, "and both
Jake and I can read the modern script." He looked over at
Jake, unsure if he was up to reading anything.

"Excellent," Owin said. "If you require anything or if you
have any questions, just press this button." He gestured to
the comm panel. "It's connected directly to my office."

As he left, Julian reached for one of the books, but stopped
when he saw the look on Joseph's face. "What?" he asked in a
low voice.

Joseph's gaze moved to the book Owin had opened and placed
on the table. "The Ranjen doesn't strike me as the kind of
man to just open a book and put it down in front of us for
no reason," he said, looking up at Julian again. "Do you
think he's trying to tell us something?"

"Let's find out. Jake, could I-" he began, but by then Jake
had already fished them out of his bag and was handing them
over. "Thank you."

He scanned the page the book was open to with one padd; as
the first lines of the translation came up, Joseph reading
it along with him over his shoulder, he frowned at the
screen. "The text seems to be identical to the translations
I've read on the station," he said. "Zocol's prophecies
aren't nearly as straightforward as Horran's, though, so we
might have to go through them with a fine-toothed comb."

"What do you mean?"

"Horran was very literal," he replied. "When he prophesied
that grey men and black rain would fall from the sky, that
was likely a reference to the Cardassian invasion.
Cardassians have a greyish cast to their skin, and they used
chemical weapons as well as conventional ones during the
first stage of the invasion. Incidentally, he also predicted
that Captain Sisko would have another child."

"Oh, really?" Joseph said, a lilt in his voice as he raised
an eyebrow. "Does Kasidy know about this Horran?"

He grinned. "I don't know and I'm not prepared to tell her.
But Zocol's prophecies aren't anywhere near as clear as
Horran's. Take this one," he said as he tapped the padd,
"the 342nd: 'The eaglet orb will be found on the furthest
Derna; the blessed one will choke in the grit.' None of the
corollaries I've read have been able to explain what he
could have meant by that."

The padd beeped, signalling that the translation was
complete; Julian beamed the English translation of the
prophecy to Joseph's padd and they both went to work.

After they'd spent over half an hour hunched over their
respective padds, Joseph looked up at Julian, the line
between his eyes deepening in apparent frustration. "I don't
get it," he said. "Zocol might be obscure  but when it comes
to actual style he was as sharp as a laser. Everything makes
perfect sense *except* that prophecy you mentioned. What in
flaming he-" and he stopped himself, looking around guiltily
at the temple walls, then started again. "What is an 'eaglet
orb'? And what do they mean by 'the furthest Derna'?"

"The word 'Derna' is sometimes used in Bajoran to allude to
a desert in the way that we sometimes use the word
'Sahara'," Julian replied. "I haven't a clue about the
eaglet orb, though. Let me see if the translation program
knows. It could be in another ancient language."

"Hebrew."

They both looked up at Jake, who was sitting on a chair in
the corner, his knees drawn up to his chest. "Son," Joseph
said, "I don't think the Bajorans knew Hebrew."

"That isn't what he means," Julian cut in, mentally giving
himself a kick in the backside for not thinking of it
himself. "He means that the Hebrew script uses letters to
represent numbers, and so did the language Zocol originally
wrote in. But the originals of his prophecies were lost
thousands of years ago. If the person who put this into
Forrian was working from an earlier translation and didn't
realize that 'eaglet' stood for a number, he'd simply
translate it as a word."

"But if we don't know what number 'eaglet' stands for,
that's not much help, is it?" Joseph said.

"I suppose not," he muttered. Something was whispering at
the edge of his memory, though...he suddenly looked up.
"Then again, perhaps we do."

Joseph followed his gaze to the far wall, where a series of
fifteen ancient bronze plaques hung above the bookcases.
"Well, for the love of God, would you beat that. Right above
our heads."

"The first etching," Julian said as he examined the plaque
furthest to the right, "is a kava bird, and it's shown
having one talon. The next is a mantor, if I'm not mistaken,
and it has two talons." He ran his gaze along the row of
plaques until he found one featuring a young Bajoran eagle.
"But that can't be," he muttered. "There are only..."

"What is it?"

"It's the tenth one," he said, pointing at the plaque. "The
eaglet is the tenth bird, and it has ten talons."

Joseph frowned at him. "But there are only nine orbs."

They exchanged a look; Julian rose to his feet and punched
the red button on the comm panel.

Owin Grea's voice came through the speaker. "Yes?"

"Ranjen Owin," Julian said, "I wonder if we could talk to
you about something in person."

"I'll be right there." His voice carried a slight but
unmistakeable hint of relief.

As Owin entered the room, Joseph rose and joined him and
Julian by the door. "Ranjen," he said, "I'm a bit confused
and I'd like some clarification about something. Might I
ask, how many orbs are there?"

"Nine, of course," he replied with an almost unnoticeable
catch to his voice.

"You're certain of that?" Julian asked.

At that question, the ranjen silently held a finger to his
lips. "It has been written for thousands of years that the
Prophets have given us nine orbs," he said. "To say
otherwise has recently been declared heresy." He crooked his
finger at them as he left the room.

The three of them silently followed Owin down a long hallway
and into a dusty, claustrophobic room located next to the
building's heating plant. As the pipes groaned around them,
Owin pulled out a filthy file folder covered with a whitish
dust Julian recognized as lead particles from an old
bookcase in the corner. Wonderful, he thought: they'd have
to go through decon once they arrived back at the station.

Owin handed Julian the folder and left them, but not before
touching his finger to his lips again. Julian and Joseph
shared another look as he opened up the file on the
minuscule desk in the corner of the room.

There were only two sheets of paper in the file. The first,
a rubbery, flexible sheet of the type the vedeks normally
used to publish official edicts, contained a diagram. The
centre of the diagram contained a green circle surrounded by
four yellow stars. Around the circle and the stars wound a
spiral in black ink studded with over a dozen thick black
spots. The line circled the central drawing fourteen times,
passing through another yellow star before ending in a blue
circle slightly larger than the green one. A brown circle
surrounded by five stars had been hastily pencilled into the
upper left-hand corner.

The other sheet contained a short text hand-written in
modern Bajoran. Julian scanned both sheets and translated
the text, then took a moment to read the original while
Joseph looked over the translation.

'My fellow vedeks have told me how dangerous it is to set my
words down on paper,' the text began. 'If the Cardassians
knew about the existence of a tenth Tear of the Prophets,
they would rip apart the planet to find it. How fortunate
that it is out of their reach. The Prophets have shown me
the Derna on which it rests and the face of the blessed man
who will bring it back to the people.

The Emissary's time is surely nigh. I have seen his face and
that of his blessed son, who will one day calm the whirlpool
of time and protect the ebb and flow from those who seek to
pollute it. May peace be on them and may they open the
heavens to the Prophets once again. Roshon M.'

With a last look at the diagram, he replaced both sheets in
the folder and silently slid it back into the bookcase.
Joseph powered down the padds and handed them back to Jake.

As they left, they met Owin Grea. "Did you find what you
were looking for?" he said as he gave them a significant
look.

"I'm afraid not," Julian replied, returning his look. "But
thank you anyway."

"Even though we struck out," Joseph added, "we'd like to
thank you for your hospitality. It was a pleasure meeting
you."

"And you."

As they left the temple, Joseph shook his head. "Damned
priests," he said, a twinkle in his eye. "Can't get a plain
answer out of any of 'em."

---

"Looks more like the wormhole to me than anything else,"
Joseph grumbled. "Except that it spirals the wrong way."

The three of them had returned to the station over an hour
ago. After completing the decon procedure, Julian had sent
Jake home with Kasidy, but he and Joseph had remained in the
quiet Infirmary trying to figure out what the diagram was
meant to tell them. They had taken over the empty ICU, the
largest room in the Infirmary and the one with the largest
viewscreen - and the most comfortable seats.

Julian frowned at the image on the screen, absentmindedly
scratching at the rough patch the decon procedure had left
on his wrist before reaching over to the control panel and
enlarging the diagram. "If Roshon was affiliated with the
temple, it could be a schematic of the Orb of
Contemplation," he suggested.

"I don't think so," Joseph said authoritatively. "Anything
as powerful as those orbs are has to be a hell of a lot more
complex than that." He thought for a moment. "I wonder who
this Roshon was," he said. "Maybe his name's the clue. Some
kind of code."

"It's possible. Computer," Julian said, "search the Bajoran
biographical directory for anyone associated with the
Capital Temple during the Occupation having the surname
Roshon."

[[Roshon Mur was appointed assistant vedek of the Capital
Temple on or around Stardate 9060.0. She was killed by
Cardassian forces on Stardate 12660.14.]]

"They killed the clergy?" Joseph asked incredulously.

"By the thousands," Julian replied. "Some were executed for
working for the Resistance, some for stealing a loaf of
bread; some died simply because they were walking down the
wrong street at the wrong time." He examined the diagram
again, his gaze wandering over the spiral structure.

"Here's one thing I don't understand," Joseph said as he
rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Why would Roshon use paper
for such a thing? One fire and it'd be gone. Why not store
it the normal way?"

Julian shrugged. "Most Bajorans weren't allowed access to
computers. The question I have is, why did she use two
sheets?"

"What do you mean?"

"Colonel Kira once mentioned that paper was as rare as
dailenium during the Occupation," he said. "The Cardassians
restricted its availability as a way of making sure the next
generation of Bajorans grew up illiterate."

"If you can't read, you can't learn, and it's easier for the
authorities to keep you stupid," Joseph said. "I have more
than a few ancestors who could relate to that lunacy."

"But Vedek Roshon used two clean unused pieces of havara
paper," Julian continued. "Havara paper is rare and
expensive even now; then it would have been worth a thousand
times its weight in latinum. It would be like a slave in
ancient Babylon carving a message meant for his fellow
slaves on a bar of 24 karat gold, then using a new bar of
gold for the second half. Why not just use both sides of one
sheet?"

"Havara paper?" Joseph exclaimed. "It reminded me of rubber.
You could almost cut it apart and-" He paused, stared at the
diagram for a moment, then slumped back in his chair. "Dr.
O'Brien," he said, a look of pure self-disgust on his face,
"we are by far the two most useless idiots in the quadrant
if not the entire goddamned galaxy." He gestured towards the
screen. "How many stars are there on that diagram?"

"Ten, and - oh my God." He sat straight up in his seat. "He
used a different sheet so that whoever found it could cut
the diagram apart..."

"-and stretch it out into a single long map without losing
the text."

"And if the green sphere is Bajor and the brown sphere is
Cardassia, then the blue planet is..."

"Exactly."

"Computer," Julian said as he moved toward the viewscreen,
"compare the diagram currently on screen with a standard
direct-line map between Bajor and Earth. Assume the green
sphere is Bajor, the blue sphere is Earth, and the black
line a straight line between the two planets."

[[Comparison completed.]]

"On screen."

Joseph let out a low whistle as Roshon's line map was
displayed superimposed on a map of the space between Earth
and Bajor. "Will you look at that," he said as he rose to
his feet. "The black dots parallel the major star systems
along the route."

"And the yellow star is just over the Federation border,"
Julian added. "Computer, list any Class L or M planets
within five light-years of this position," he asked as he
touched the screen.

[[Karlon V, Class L. Karlon VI, Class M. Tyree, Class M.
Ravindra, Class M.]]

They exchanged a look. "That prophecy," Joseph said, "what
did it say? Something about Derna?"

"The eaglet orb will be found on the furthest Derna," Julian
replied as he leant against the back of one of the ICU
chairs. "The tenth orb will be found on the furthest desert.
Computer, are any of these planets desert worlds?"

[[Affirmative. Tyree has an average annual rainfall of less
than-]]

"Enough. Show Tyree on screen."

A blue icon lit up almost immediately under the yellow star
from Roshon's map.

"Are there any Class L or M desert planets between Tyree and
Bajor?" he asked the computer.

[[Negative.]]

He turned to Joseph. "The furthest desert planet on the way
from Earth to Bajor. The furthest Derna."

"And the blessed man will find it. The blessed son, in fact,
if I remember right. Which, if Roshon meant what I think she
did, means Jake."

"Which means we have to take him there," Julian said. "The
problem is, if I ask Colonel Kira for a runabout, she might
get caught between the various factions and..." His voice
trailed off as he leaned against the back of the chair.
"Listen," he finally said, "it may take me a day or two, but
let me see what I can do. If all else fails, you and Jake
can take a commercial shuttle to Ravindra and arrange for
passage from there, but I'd really like to see this out
myself."

"I bet you do," he said. "If you don't mind my asking, how
long have the two of you been married?"

"Four years last month. We've known each other for - it's
coming up on six years now." He looked up at the chrono.
"Which reminds me; I should get back before Mr. and Mrs.
O'Brien resort to kidnapping me to get me home."

Joseph grinned. "I'm pretty well stove in myself. Comm me
when you have news."

As Joseph left, Julian took a moment to shut down the
terminal and stow the viewscreen, palming off the light to
the ICU before stopping to check in with Girani. He had a
lot of favours to call in if he was going to pull this one
off.

---

Julian entered the turbolift. "Level 3."

As the glass car carried him to the upper level of the
Promenade, he ran a hand down the glass wall of the lift and
held back a yawn. He'd spent half the night lying in bed
staring at the ceiling, pondering the events of the previous
evening. Why had Owin been so secretive with them? Why not
just tell them about the tenth orb? Why make it into a
puzzle?

He'd finally given up on sleep and instead powered up the
terminal in the front room. After an hour of
raktajino-fuelled research, he'd been able to confirm his
suspicions: Kai Winn had been the one to unilaterally decree
four months earlier that belief in or even discussion of a
tenth orb was heretical. Her edict had surprised the members
of the Vedek Assembly, most of whom had never considered the
possibility of a tenth orb. Only Vedek Merel had stood up in
opposition. Julian suspected she was the only member of the
Assembly who knew a tenth orb existed.

But he had to ask himself: why would the Kai try to hide the
existence of the tenth orb? And why did the ranjen of the
Capital Temple think he was being spied upon?

There was no doubt about it: he was stepping into a
quagmire, but from what he could tell it was the only way to
reach his destination.

Kira was waiting for him when he reached Sisko's office.
"You've put me in a very difficult position, you know that?"
she said as he walked through the doors and took a seat.

He frowned at her. "In what way?"

"I've been led to understand that you and Mr. Sisko are
planning to leave the station with Jake," she said, her eyes
on Sisko's baseball. "Is that correct?"

"Well, yes..." Apparently Ranjen Owin had been right, he
thought; someone was spying on the Capital Temple.

She picked up the ball and held it in her hand, examining it
while she spoke. "Somebody on the planet surface isn't very
happy about it," she said. "In fact, I've been informed that
if I approve your application for leave or provide you with
transportation so you can reach your destination, wherever
that is, I'll be recalled from the station. I could even be
excommunicated." She lifted her gaze to meet his.

He was about to reply, but something in her eyes made him
stop. She wanted an out, he suddenly realized. If she didn't
know where he was going, she couldn't stop him; if she
didn't make the choice to let him go, she wouldn't be
responsible.

"It's fortunate, then," he said, "that you don't have to do
either of those things. Admiral Quinn is my immediate
superior at Starfleet Medical and is therefore able to
authorize my application for leave in Captain Sisko's
absence. And, of course, a member of the Bajoran Militia
doesn't have the power to bar a Starfleet officer from
operating a Starfleet vessel."

"I only have limited powers, you're right." She held his
gaze; her words were deliberate. "There's only so much I can
do."

He paused, dropping his gaze to the desk between them as the
full meaning of her words hit him. "I've arranged with
Admiral Quinn for seven days' leave," he finally said.
"Captain Figueiredo has agreed to provide me with
transportation. If an emergency arises, she can give you the
necessary communications codes." He looked back up at her.
"If I'm not back by this time next week..."

She nodded. "Good luck."

As he reached the turbolift to return to the Habitat Ring,
he looked back at her. She was staring out the viewport, her
eyes unfocussed, her face as grim as he felt. Her expression
made Julian wonder if Kai Winn had ever heard of the Golden
Rule. Or maybe she had: she wore the gold, she made the
rules.

---

"Now you're sure about this?" Aoife asked for the thousandth
time. "I mean, it seems pretty dodgy, going halfway to the
Breen Confederacy just for a chunk of crystal."

"The lad knows what he's doing, love," Michael said as they
arrived at the airlock that led to the Venture. "Dozaria
isn't even all that far away - I looked it up on the
terminal this morning. He'll be back in a few days."

Julian kissed Fiona one last time, breathing in her clean
baby scent before passing her over to Michael. "Don't worry,
Aoife," he said, keeping his tone light. "I'm not even
certain that the Eye of Balkur is still there, and if it is
I'll probably be able to beam it up from the shuttlecraft."

He hated to lie to her but the last thing he wanted to do
was to put her or his children in any danger. After his
conversation with Colonel Kira the day before he'd realized
that whoever was spying on them might also target them if
they accidentally mentioned where he was going, so he and
Michael had concocted a story about Julian going off to
Dozaria to find a magic jewel that had been mentioned in
some obscure book of sermons. Joseph and Jake had made a
show of leaving the station the previous afternoon,
supposedly to take a well-deserved vacation on the planet
surface.

Molly looked up at him. "Are you gonna try and help Daddy
fix the wormhole again, Papa?"

He knelt down and gave her a big hug and a kiss her on the
cheek. "You bet I am. Are you going to be a good girl for
your Granny and Granda?"

She pouted. "Can I go with you?"

He suddenly felt something inside him shatter. "Not this
time, bunny," he told her, "but I'll be back before you know
it." He gave her another hug as he looked up at Michael.
"I've left everything with Colonel Kira," he said in a voice
meant for his ears alone.

Michael nodded. "We won't need it," he replied in a similar
tone.

"I'll be home soon." He stood, ruffled Molly's hair again,
kissed Fiona again, and did the most difficult thing he'd
ever done: leave his girls behind with no guarantee they'd
ever see either of their parents again.

Since Fiona had been born, he and Miles had tried to arrange
it so that one of them was always on station if the other
was on a mission. It hadn't been that difficult: the sector
had been relatively quiet since the signing of the
Federation-Vorta peace accords, and even when something did
pop up there weren't many missions that required both an
engineer and a physician. It also helped that Sisko didn't
much care who manned the Defiant's sickbay as long as the
sickbay was in fact manned, or that his new locum, Eva
Perreira, was so eager to build up her on-ship hours that
she usually volunteered before he could even assign her.

The Venture's airlock closed behind him; he looked back for
a moment, then headed off to find a turbolift that would
take him to the shuttle bay.

"Are you this late all the time?" Fig asked as she met him
at the door to the bay. "I should tell Ben about you."

He gave her a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I had
to brief my locum and..." and he sighed. "And say goodbye to
my children. Does it ever get easier?"

She gave him a sympathetic smile. "I don't think it's
supposed to."

He shook his head as they entered the bay where the
Al-Khwarizmi, the shuttle Fig was lending him, was docked.

"Can you believe," Fig said as they entered the bay where
the Al-Khwarizmi, the shuttle Fig was lending him, was
docked, "that this tiny thing can go at Warp 9.98? Ablative
armour, level eight phasers, and get this: a cloaking
device. Miles is going to be in heaven when he sees what
they've done with his ideas."

He looked up at the silver ship, privately grateful for her
confidence in Miles's return. "It looks like she's never
been out of dock."

"We just picked her up at Utopia Planetia," she replied,
more than a hint of pride in her voice. "Did I tell you we
were supposed to undergo a full refit? We'd only been there
three days when the Gryphon's phase inducers went offline
and Command suddenly ordered us out here. Twenty-four hours
longer and the entire ship would have been torn down." She
suddenly raised an eyebrow. "You did hear about the
Gryphon."

"Constable Odo filled me in last night," he said. "I had
thought it was quite the coincidence that the only starship
in the sector other than the Defiant happened to be in the
repair dock right when the Lemna V relay went out."

"An astounding coincidence, if you ask me."

Their eyes met.

"Anyway," she continued, "my chief engineer took her out for
a test run to Jeraddo and back. She said she handles like a
ship half her size, so I don't think you'll have any
problems with her. Just try to bring her back to me in one
piece, all right?"

He grinned at her. "Will do. And thanks again."

"Hey, what are friends for?" she replied as she drew him
into a hug. "Just get that man of yours back for us."

He watched her leave, then pressed the door control and
entered the craft. "So how-" and he looked around. "This
isn't bad."

Joseph Sisko grinned at him from one of the passenger seats.
"It might not be as spacious as the quarters Fig put us up
in last night, but I can't complain; I've had apartments
that were smaller and less convenient than this." He cocked
a thumb towards the aft cabin. "We've got a separate fresher
room, a foldout dining area, a decent place to lie out,
and," he said, lowering his voice, "I even got fried
plantains and couche couche out of the replicator this
morning. Not as good as my own maybe, but still. By the way,
Jake's in the fresher." He grimaced. "I had to send him in
to take a sonic."

He shared a sympathetic look with Joseph. "Sometimes it's
necessary to remind people who are grieving to take care of
themselves," he said. "They forget to clean themselves, they
forget to eat: either that or they end up eating too much."

"In his case I'm going to have to sit him down and make him
finish a meal as well. Two forkfuls of rice, well..." He
frowned. "You couldn't keep a langouste alive with that."

Julian sat down at the pilot's station and began his
pre-departure checks. "It should take us about 20 hours to
get to Tyree," he said to Joseph as Jake emerged from the
fresher. "If we'd had to take a runabout we could have spent
a week in transit."

Joseph harrumphed, then looked up at his grandson. "Sit
down, Jake, and strap yourself in."

The young man dropped into a chair, barely bothering to
secure his safety harness before closing his eyes.

---

"Anything yet?" he asked Joseph.

The man shook his head. "Nothing."

They had reached the uninhabited planet of Tyree a little
over an hour ago. Julian had been impressed by how smoothly
the Al-Khwarizmi's engines ran; unfortunately, her
navigational console hadn't functioned anywhere near as
flawlessly. He'd spent the first six light-years making
dozens of fiddly little course corrections while the
navigational computer tried in vain to align itself to
non-existent Federation beacons in neutral space. It was
only when they reached a shipping lane that the console
began to operate normally and Julian had been able to catch
a few hours' sleep. He'd also taken the opportunity to teach
Joseph how to read sensor results, since he knew he'd need
his help to locate the orb.

That was, if the orb was still on the planet surface after
over forty years, which wasn't looking too likely at the
moment. They'd scanned for all nineteen isotopes of
dailenium, but with no success.

"If the sensors can't find the mineral itself," Joseph said,
breaking into his thoughts, "maybe they can find whatever it
is that makes a chunk of dailenium into an orb."

He leaned back in his seat. "Dax told me once that she
thought the orbs were made out of dailenium because they
could communicate with it using the mineral's resonant
frequency."

"Like an old crystal communications receiver."

"Exactly. I don't know which specific isotopes the orbs
would contain, but perhaps if we transmit on those
frequencies we could create a resonance."

"Couldn't that cause the orb to shatter?" Joseph asked.

"No. That's why dailenium is so valuable; it won't shatter
under normal circumstances. Computer," he said as he took
the shuttlecraft below the ionosphere, "broadcast a tone
that will be audible on the surface on all known resonant
frequencies of dailenium isotopes. Scan for signs of
resonance."

"Half the planet surface just lit up," Joseph said after a
moment.

Julian punched a command into the console. "Some isotopes of
dailenium share resonant frequencies with other
thallium-based minerals," he told Joseph. "If we can weed
those out we can likely narrow down the possibilities.
Computer, scan the planet surface for thallium-based
minerals other than dailenium. Eliminate resonance from
those sources and display any other sources."

"I'm not seeing anything...hold on!" Joseph magnified one
section of the map. "Here, in the northern plateau. The
signal's damned faint, though, and I can't pinpoint the
location."

Julian leaned over to give the map a look. "I'll take us
lower."

"It's starting to clear up," Joseph said as the shuttlecraft
hovered directly overhead the signal. "Almost there...we've
got it: 51.0227 North, 114.1146 West."

As Julian steered the shuttlecraft toward the location, he
snuck a look at Jake out of the corner of his eye. The young
man had barely moved a muscle in the last 12 hours. His
grandfather had urged a glass of juice and a cup of coffee
on him and he had used the facilities, but other than that
he'd just sat staring out the side viewport or with his eyes
closed. If he didn't come out of it soon, Julian thought,
he'd have to intervene.

The source of the resonance was located near the centre of a
vast sandy desert studded with massive outcrops of rock.
Julian didn't want to cover the orb (or whatever they'd
located) with sand, so he took the shuttlecraft into a low,
slow landing pattern, bringing it down gently to the east of
a tall sand dune. "It should be either on top of the dune or
just on the other side," he told Joseph as he powered down
the thrusters and set the brake. "Shall we go?"

They opened the door and stepped out into the hot wind, the
three of them squinting against the grit that flew up into
their faces. Julian was just about to begin climbing the
dune when a disembodied voice rang out from behind the
crest. "Jake!"

The young man froze in mid-stride, his eyes suddenly as wide
as Julian had ever seen them. "ZEE?" he shouted, running
towards the sound, his feet slipping in the sand as he made
his way up the hill. The other two followed him, Julian
ignoring the shiver that had run up his spine the moment he
heard that all-too-familiar voice.

As Julian and Jake reached the top of the dune, a breath of
air flickered and coalesced into a shimmering light; the
swirling colours then settled into an image of Ziyal.

"Jake," she said as the young man dropped to his knees and
began to sob. "Priya anorah, it's all right. I'm with the
Prophets. Don't mourn me."

The tears ran down his cheeks. "Zee, no..."

"Don't cry, love," she continued. "I'm happy and so is
Deborah. But Jake, you have to listen to me. Father's
started a war and the Prophets need you to stop it."

By then Joseph had reached them. "A war?" he asked, panting
in the thin air.

She flickered again, just for an instant, and at that moment
Julian noticed a battered metal box lying in the sand below
her spectre.

Ziyal spoke again, her eyes never leaving Jake's face.
"Father is the Emissary to the Pah-wraiths. He released a
pah-wraith into the Orb of Contemplation, and that act
started a war between the pah-wraiths and the Prophets.
Jake, you have to take the orb back to the Celestial
Temple."

"The one in the box?" Julian asked, as Joseph knelt down
beside his grandson.

Ziyal ignored him. "Take the box to the Temple and open it
there," she told Jake, reaching out to caress his cheek with
a ghostly hand. "You have to do this: if you fail, the
pah-wraiths will win and the whirlpool of time will dissolve
into the chasm of the past."

But Jake didn't appear to be listening. "Zee!" he sobbed as
he raised his hand to try to touch hers, "I love you! Come
back...or take me with you...please..."

"Jake, you have to do this. It's your destiny." Her face
grew soft. "If you succeed, some day we will be together,
all three of us."

She stepped back; beside her, another whisper of wind
coalesced into the image of a young girl about Molly's age
whose long wavy black hair and enormous dark eyes contrasted
with her faint but unmistakeable Cardassian and Bajoran
facial ridges. She smiled up at Jake as she held out her
arms to him and mouthed the word 'daddy'.

Jake looked back and forth between the two of them, then
gave a strangled cry as the two ghosts faded into the wind.
"NO!!!" he screamed as he reached out to grasp the air where
the visions of Ziyal and Deborah had been, losing his
balance and falling to the ground beside the box. "NO, ZEE!
COME BACK! NO!"

As Joseph tried to comfort his screaming, flailing grandson,
Julian carefully picked up the box containing the Orb and
carried it back to the shuttlecraft, making sure the straps
wrapped around it were tight before securing it in one of
the aft storage bays. He glanced back to where his medkit
was stowed for just a moment, but left without it. The last
thing Jake needed was to be sedated, not when he was finally
beginning to let out all the anger and grief and desperation
he'd felt over the past eleven days.

As he reached the crest of the dune again, he found Jake
still on the ground sobbing uncontrollably, Joseph trying to
gather him in his arms. He knelt down beside the two of them
and placed a gentle hand on Jake's shoulder.

Jake's head suddenly whipped up. "You bastard!" he shouted
at Julian. "You goddamn fucking BASTARD!"

He frowned at the young man. "Jake, I'm-"

And without another word Jake launched himself at him.

It was all but over in seconds. Julian had been
half-expecting the attack; his intuition had given him the
split second he needed to fall back just before Jake reached
him. He grabbed Jake around the shoulders in a tight bear
hug, holding on as he landed a flurry of kicks on his shins
and shouted a stream of insults into his ear. Eventually,
after an eternity of struggling, Jake wore out, slumping in
his arms.

"You let her die!" Jake ground out as he fell to the sand
again, his arms wrapped around his waist. "You made me let
her die! Why didn't you save her? Why didn't you-"

"Jake," Julian replied, "Jake, when I performed the
autopsy-"

He clapped his hands over his ears. "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR
THIS!" he shouted through his tears.

"Jake! You have to listen to me!" Julian hauled him up by
the shoulders and shook him until he dropped his hands; he
knew the young man had to hear this if he had any chance of
understanding. "When I performed the autopsy, I found that
her brain had been injured far worse than we - than I had
realized. She had no chance! If you had put her on a
respirator she would have never opened her eyes again, she
would have never heard your voice again, or seen your face!
The only thing she would have known was pain!"

"NO! GET THE HELL AWAY-"

"You didn't kill her, Jake!" he shouted over the young man's
screams of savage rage. "Her father did! You only made sure
she didn't die slowly or in pain. You saved her from so much
suffering. You did the right thing!"

Jake tore himself out of Julian's arms and dropped to the
ground again, howling incoherently as if he were expelling
every demon in the pantheon from his soul. He clawed and
kicked and punched the ground, flailing in rage and agony
and despair. Eventually, his screams turned into heaving,
gasping sobs as he began to cough in the cloud of dust he'd
kicked up. Joseph silently knelt by him, rubbing his back
between the shoulder blades until he finally calmed down
enough to sit up.

"Come on, Jake-o," Joseph said to him in a low, soothing
voice as he helped him to his feet. "Let's get back to
Bajor. You need to look after your father now."

As they returned to the shuttlecraft, Jake supported by
Julian as the three of them slid down the steep slope,
Joseph silently looked back up toward the crest, then met
Julian's eyes. "If I live a thousand lifetimes," he said,
"I'll never understand how that son-of-a-bitch could do it."

---

"...maybe if I do what she said, maybe she'll come back.
Then we can be together again. Dammit, how could Dukat kill
his own daughter..."

Julian held back a sigh. Jake had been babbling to himself,
and to them, for the past sixteen hours straight, bouncing
around the five stages of grief like a springball and
inventing a few new stages of his own along the way. He
wasn't sure if it was healthy; then again, nothing about
grief was. But there was no cure for it other than a
tincture of time, one of the least palatable medicines
known.

He'd finally fixed the navigational console and set the
transponder to pick up the Bajor beacon, but was debating
whether he wanted tea or coffee when Joseph returned to the
main cabin. "Where are we at now?" he asked Julian as he
ordered two servings of red beans and rice from the
replicator, handing one to Jake as he leaned against the
bulkhead.

"We're about four hours away," he replied. "I just hope this
works."

"You and me both." He put down his bowl and rubbed the back
of his neck. "I've been wondering. Don't you think it's
strange that Dukat would close the wormhole right when the
Defiant was in the Gamma Quadrant? I don't know, it seems
like..." He shrugged. "I don't know, too good to be a
coincidence."

The communications panel suddenly beeped; it was a subspace
message from Deep Space Nine. "On screen," he called as he
turned back to face the monitor and Joseph sat down beside
him.

Kira's face materialized on the screen. "Julian, tell me
that ship of yours has a cloaking device."

"I think it does," he said with a frown. "Why are you
asking?"

She looked away for a moment, then turned back to the
screen. "About eight hours ago, the Bajoran News Service
received evidence that a vedek who died during the
Occupation predicted the discovery of a tenth orb somewhere
between here and Earth. According to an anonymous source,
someone has gone to bring it back."

"How interesting," he said in an even tone. Owin Grea was
upping the stakes, it seemed.

"The Kai's office apparently tried to suppress the report,"
she continued, "but the opposition got hold of it and now
everyone's asking questions - where is the orb, when will it
be here, who's bringing it. I also have to inform you that
you've received orders directly from Kai Winn. Would you
like me to read them to you?"

"Go ahead," he said as he reached for the subspace
modulation control.

"You are to return to Bajor with
the...directly...Kai's...avoid the worm...further delay."

"I'm sorry," he shouted as he suddenly switched off visuals,
"your signal's breaking up! I can't hear you!"

" - by 23...Militia members will be auth...detained
indefini..."

He gave the control a final twist; the comm went silent.

Joseph glared at him. "What the flaming hell was that
trick?" he asked.

"Unfortunate, isn't it?" he replied innocently as he engaged
the cloaking device. "Brand new shuttlecraft and nobody
bothered to check whether the comm system worked properly
before sending it out on a mission. I couldn't make heads
nor tails out of that order, could you?"

He snorted. "It's your ass, not mine," he said, shaking his
head as he went back to his red beans and rice.

Julian checked the navigational console again, holding back
an indignant grunt. He would be damned if he'd take orders
from Kai Winn.

He checked the chrono again, then sat back and pulled out a
sheaf of journals he'd been meaning to read. Somewhere
between the announcement of a new species of mycobacterium
discovered on Ferenginar and the final report of the Third
Annual Conference on Vinodian Plague, his mind wandered back
to the meningitis virus, the sabotage to the Gryphon, the
failure of the Lemna facility, Dukat's escape and subsequent
misdeeds (and his disappearance afterwards), and the
unwillingness of the Bajoran government to accept the
existence of the tenth orb. There were too many things going
on, he thought, for them to be coincidental.

The nav console chimed; they were ten minutes away. Julian
sat up and stretched, then swivelled in his seat to face
Jake, who was once again staring out the window. "Are you
ready?" he asked him.

Jake blinked. "So what do I do again?" he said in a small
voice.

"I'll bring us in as close to the location of the wormhole
as I can. When I signal you, all you have to do is open the
box. Once that happens, if the wormhole reopens we'll return
to the station."

"And if it doesn't?"

"If it doesn't," he said, taking a deep breath, "we go back
to the drawing board. But I doubt this has all been a wild
goose chase. With all the prophecies and-"

The communications system suddenly beeped a warning; he
turned around. "Damn."

"What is it?" Joseph asked as he returned to the main cabin
with the dusty box, handing it to Jake as he sat.

Julian frowned. "It's a general broadcast to all ships in
the vicinity. Visuals, audio, and text. I'll bring up the
audio." He readjusted the subspace modulation control.

"-authorized to take all necessary steps to apprehend those
responsible." The voice paused. "This is a Priority One
announcement from the Government of Bajor. A warrant has
been issued for the arrest of three Federation citizens
wanted for the-"

"So it is my ass after all," Joseph said after Julian muted
the audio again, "and Jake's. Sounds like they're gunning
for us. Problem is, they don't know we're cloaked."

"Let's hope not," Julian said. "Although even if they do
know, there's not much they can do to stop us."

The minutes ticked off as the three men sat in silence,
Julian sneaking looks every minute or so at Jake as he
clutched the box containing the orb.

The ship suddenly dropped down to Warp 4, then to impulse as
they reached the Denorios Belt. "Almost there," he said to
Jake. "Stand by."

Jake undid the straps holding the box closed, then grasped
the lid.

"Hold on," he murmured, steering the ship towards the point
where the wormhole should have been. "Not yet...now!"

Jake opened the box: a ball of blazing light erupted from
the box, almost blinding the three men. Julian raised his
arms to cover his face, but before he could do so the ball
of light swept out of the viewport and lit up the heavens. A
split second later, the wormhole burst into view mere metres
from their position.

The shuttlecraft suddenly began to shake violently. "What's
happening?" Joseph shouted over the sound of creaking metal.

"I don't know!" Julian yelled back. "I'm reading an immense
graviton surge that - there's a ship coming out of the
wormhole!"

He tried to navigate away, but he found himself knocked from
the console as the emerging ship slammed into theirs,
flinging the three men against the far wall of the craft as
it spun and twisted --

-- and they suddenly found themselves lying on the
transporter pad on the bridge of the Defiant, Captain Sisko
staring down at them.

"Jake, what are you - Dad?!" he said, his eyebrows
stratospheric. "How did you get here so soon!"

They stared at him, then at each other. "He's been here for
a week and a half," Jake said as he and Julian rose to their
feet.

The captain opened his mouth to say something when Joseph
suddenly cried out in pain. Julian crouched back down and
checked his pulse as the captain jumped onto the pad.
"D'Abruzzo!" he shouted. "Four to beam directly to Sickbay!"

As the bridge faded out, Julian lifted his head to look for
Miles, but Jake and the captain were blocking his line of
sight.

They rematerialized in the trauma bay, Joseph on a biobed,
the other three surrounding it. Julian grabbed a medical
tricorder from the nurse and scanned him. "His right femur
is broken," Julian said to Sisko as Perreira reached the
biobed. "It's a simple break; he should be fine."

He stepped back from the biobed as Perreira and her team
took over and turned to Jake, who was still holding the box
containing the orb. "Listen, are you going to be all right-"

Suddenly a voice called from the doorway. "Hey, is anyone
free? I've got a helluva-"

Julian spun around, his heart in his throat. "MILES!"

"Doctor-" Sisko began, but Julian didn't hear the rest as he
seats across from sickbay. He was alive, he was all right, he
was-

"Whoa!" Miles shouted, jumping back half a metre as he held
out his left arm. "Plasma burn!" He suddenly frowned.
"What're you doing on the Defiant?"

Julian didn't answer him, but grabbed the back of his neck
and pulled him in for a crushing kiss.

"Mmmf-"

"DOCTOR O'BRIEN!"

He pulled away from Miles and spun around. "Sorry, sir," he
said to an obviously fuming Sisko. "It's just that-"

His eyes were hard. "Perhaps, Lieutenant, if you're finished
with your touching display of connubial bliss, you could
take a moment to tell me exactly what the HELL is going on!"

Just then the comm system sprung to life. [[D'Abruzzo to
Sisko.]]

He glowered at the ceiling. "Yes?"

[[Captain, the station's just contacted us. Colonel Kira
said that we've been gone for over eleven days-]]

"Eleven-" Miles sputtered.

[[-and that the Kai has ordered Constable Odo to take Dr.
O'Brien, Joseph Sisko, and Jake Sisko into custody upon our
arrival to the station. She's charging them with...heresy.]]

"She - she WHAT?!?" Sisko exclaimed.

[[That's what the colonel said, sir.]]

Sisko gave the ceiling another astonished look, then glared
at Julian. "Have the three of you converted to the Bajoran
faith in our absence, Doctor?" he asked.

"No, sir."

"Then why is the Kai charging you with heresy?"

"It's a long story, sir."

Sisko ran a hand over his head. "I'm sure it is, and you can
fill me in as soon as we get back." He looked up at the
ceiling again. "Thank you, D'Abruzzo. Sisko out."

Miles waited until the captain took Jake aside, then asked
Julian, "D'you have a minute to look at this?" he said,
holding up his forearm.

Julian kissed him again, then led him over to the free
biobed. "Hop up."

"So what happened?" Miles asked as he sat on the biobed.
"And why in the name of all things holy do you keep kissing
me?"

He injected Miles with an analgesic and switched on the
subdermal regenerator. "Because," he said as he began to run
the regenerator over Miles's burn, "I didn't know for eleven
days whether you were alive or dead, or if I'd ever see you
again."

Miles huffed. "You'll not get rid of me that easily. But
eleven days? We left yesterday evening."

Julian looked up from the wound. "You-"

A sudden loud noise made them turn their heads: Jake Sisko
had just collapsed sobbing into his father's arms, the box
containing the orb falling to the floor with a crash.

Miles turned back to Julian. "What's that all about?" he
asked. "Did something happen with Ziyal?"

He took Miles's hand. "I'm afraid so."

---

"-then, after Ziyal's and Deborah's - djinnis, I suppose you
could call them - disappeared, we left Tyree for Bajor,"
Julian continued. "Once we arrived at the wormhole, Jake
opened the box, allowing the entity to depart the orb and
flow towards the wormhole. We had expected the wormhole
would open, but we didn't know the Defiant was right on the
event horizon. We couldn't get away in time, and the Defiant
struck the shuttlecraft."

"My God," Sisko groaned as he rubbed the bridge of his nose
and leaned back in his chair. "How the hell - how did Dukat
get into the temple in the first place?" he asked Odo.

"My working hypothesis is that he beamed himself into the
Temple in order to release the wraith into the Orb of
Contemplation," he replied. "When he arrived, however, Ziyal
was in his way. He pushed her aside, but in doing so he
subjected her to a burst of an unknown form of energy."

"We did our best to save her," Julian added, "but the damage
to her cerebral cortex was too great. If it's any
consolation, I don't think she suffered much."

"It's not much of a consolation, I'm afraid, but..." Sisko
turned to Dax with a sigh. "Have you been able to discover
how we lost almost eleven and a half days?"

"From what we can tell," she said, "the Defiant was inside
the wormhole when it collapsed."

"Inside?" Miles asked. "You mean we were collapsed too?"

"In a way. Lenara - Dr. Kahn - thinks the wormhole was
pulled into hyperspace at the moment the pah-wraith entered
the orb. Since we were inside the wormhole at the time, we
were also pulled into hyperspace and experienced temporal
suspension. When Jake released the entity, it was somehow
able to pull the wormhole back into subspace."

"Could we deliberately conceal the wormhole in the same
manner?" Worf asked.

"Dr. Kahn is studying that," she replied. "It might give us
a way to protect Bajor if the Vorta and Jem'Hadar break the
treaty."

"I'd like you to keep me updated on Dr. Kahn's progress,"
Sisko said. "Colonel," he said, turning to Kira, "I
understand the Bajoran government has changed its mind about
charging Dr. O'Brien, my father, and my son?"

"They have," she said, somewhat shamefaced; Julian wasn't
sure why, since none of it had been her idea. "Shakaar has
also asked me to pass on his personal apology to you,
Julian, and to Jake and Mr. Sisko; apparently the
information he received about your intentions was
inaccurate. The Kai has also advised the First Minister that
she regrets issuing a warrant without due cause."

"Tell Shakaar I accept his apology," Julian said, carefully
not referring to the Kai's words. Winn could express her
'regret', as she described it, all she wanted, but until she
expressed remorse he wasn't about to forgive her.

Heresy, he grumbled to himself. What had she been planning
to do: stretch him on the rack?

Sisko rose to his feet. "I think we've all had a long enough
day as it is: you're dismissed. Constable, if I could speak
with you for a moment first?"

The rest of them filed out of the conference room. Julian
stuck close to Miles as they headed down the corridor to the
turbolift.

"Eleven and a half days," Miles said. "How's Molly taking
it?"

Julian gave him a dry look. "She's perfectly fine. She
thinks you're off 'fixing the wormhole'. *I'm* the one who
didn't take it well. I had a crying fit in my office."

Miles's mouth dropped open. "You - you cried?"

"Yes, and don't rub it in. Worst of all, I yelled at your
stepmother."

"Well, she can take it, and she's 50 light-years away so-"

"No, she isn't," Julian said as they reached the turbolifts
and he pressed the down button. "She's here, and I - what?"

Miles looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "She's
here."

He nodded.

"Here on the station."

"She and Michael are looking after the girls right now," he
said.

"Here on Deep Space Nine."

Julian sighed. "Yes, Miles, they're here. Get over it."

"It's not that," Miles said. "It's just...when I almost died
that time on T'Lani? They didn't come."

Julian looked at him. "No?"

"When the Cardies arrested me?" He shook his head. "They
didn't come."

"Ah."

"When I got away from Argratha? They didn't come."

"I didn't realize that."

They entered the turbolift. "So why did they - mmmmf!"

Julian threw Miles back against the far wall of the empty
turbolift, plundering his mouth as if they hadn't touched in
ten years as the doors closed behind them.

"I don't know why they're here," Julian said innocently as
he stepped back, leaving Miles sprawled against the back
wall trying to catch his breath. "I called them to tell them
you were missing and three hours later they were on their
way. It might be because your stepmother is convinced I'm
completely useless-"

"That's because she's never kissed you," Miles panted. "Holy
Aine."

"-and your father worships the ground I walk on. Habitat
level 14."

Miles gave him a menacing look as he tugged at his tunic.
"Well, thank you so bloody much. Now I have to go meet them
*and* our children looking like some kind of out-of-control
sex maniac."

"Kai Winn," Julian said, his tone even. "Latex. Fishnets.
Bent over a-"

"ALL RIGHT!" Miles shouted. He stewed for a moment, his eyes
on the turbolift doors, then gave Julian a low, hard look.
"Arse."

"Love you too, dear." The turbolift doors opened.

On their way to their quarters, Miles turned to Julian. "Do
you think they've put the girls to bed yet?"

"I doubt it," he replied. "It's only 1430."

He frowned, then his face cleared. "That's right. I'm going
to be bollixed up for the next week. And not that way!" he
said at Julian's sly, slow smile.

They entered their quarters; Julian took a look around,
thanking Holy Aine himself that the room had been spared
further adventures in interior design. "Hello!" he called
out.

"Papa!" Molly emerged from the side corridor and ran toward
them, followed by Michael. "Did you - DADDY!!"

Miles swept her up. "So how's my little girl?" he asked.

"I missed you!" she cried as she kissed him on the cheek.
"Did you fix the wormhole?"

"No, sweetie," he said, nodding at Julian. "Papa fixed the
wormhole."

She gave him a cross look. "Papa doesn't fix things, he
fixes people!"

Miles grinned at her. "Well, this time he fixed something,
and I didn't even help. Hello, Da."

"It's good to see you, son," Michael said, clapping Miles on
the shoulder. "Aoife's just off changin' Fiona. Your Colonel
Kira called us, let us know what happened. She said you
didn't even know you'd gone missing?"

He leaned back against the wall as Molly wrapped her arms
around his neck and clung to him. "Didn't have a clue. On
our side the entire thing didn't take much longer than
eighteen hours, and to tell the truth it wasn't even worth
sending a starship out there for. Some nit-brain had
disconnected the amplifier; it took us about ten minutes to
fix it. About ten seconds after we passed through the
wormhole on the way back, Ichabod here," and he nodded at
Julian, "and his two partners in crime crashed their shuttle
into our starboard nacelle." He gave Julian a look. "You
know, Fig's going to give you hell over that."

"Oh, I'm sure she will," he answered.

"And then," he said, turning back to Michael, "we ended up
getting hauled in-" Miles suddenly froze, his eyes on the
enormous pointillist image of his face spread across the far
wall. "What the f...what is that?" he said, walking over to
it, Molly still in his arms. He turned back and glared at
Julian. "Where - who-"

"It's you, Daddy!" Molly said, interrupting him with a
giggle. "Granny put it up and I helped!"

"You did?" He gave it another look. "Well, you...um, you did
a very good job of, um, of helping Granny," he said, nodding
at her.

"I'd thought you'd like it," Aoife said as she emerged from
the nursery, Fiona in her arms and a large bag slung over
her right shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't bring Fi out before
but she needed to be changed."

Michael held out his arms to Molly. "C'mere, love." She
hopped into his grasp and Michael carried her down the
hallway. "Just need to get something," he called out over
his shoulder.

Aoife handed Fiona to Miles. "She's a bright little thing,
you know," she said as father and daughter shared a smile.
"I showed her your holo and she said 'dada'."

"Now come on," Michael called from the far room. "At that
age she'd probably say 'dada' to a holo of the Ha'penny
Bridge." He emerged with Molly in one arm and a suitcase in
the other. "We thought you'd like some time alone," he
explained, "so we booked passage for ourselves and the girls
on the Jeraddo cruise leaving this afternoon. Just an
overnight excursion; we should be back by 1300 tomorrow."

"You-" Miles started.

"When we get back should we drop the girls off at the
daycare or here?" Aoife asked.

"No, that's all right," Julian said before Miles could get a
word in. "I'll meet you at the airlock, I'm on leave for the
next three days."

Aoife gently took Fiona back. "Miles," she said, "I don't
think I've ever been so happy to see anybody in my life as I
am to see you. You can't imagine how worried I was - well,
both of us. In fact, I was planning to ask Father Browne to
say a-"

"Aoife!" Michael said, "we'll have to be lively or we'll
miss the ship!"

"I know, I know," she said, giving Julian a roll of her
eyes. "If we're not there twenty minutes too early we'll be
late. We'll be back tomorrow."

"Have a good time," he said.

Miles watched them leave in silence, then stared at the door
for ten full seconds before he spoke. "She used to hate me."

"She likes you now," Julian said as he moved behind Miles
and wrapped his arms around him.

"She likes *you* now, you mean," he said, looking back at
the painting. "And why would she-"

Julian rolled his eyes, then grabbed Miles's arm and dragged
him into the bedroom.

"But I was going to-"

Julian shoved Miles onto the bed, crawling on top of him and
holding his shoulders down. "I have spent the last *eleven*
days poring over sensor logs," he growled, his face mere
centimetres from Miles's, "muddling through Bajoran holy
texts, wrangling with clerics, escorting Jake and his father
to bloody Tyree and back and almost getting pulverized to
atoms by the Defiant *and* arrested for *heresy* in the
process, and if that wasn't bad enough I had to stand by
while your stepmother tried to turn my living room into a
technicolor aviary! Don't. Get. Lost. AGAIN!"

Miles swallowed.

"Because if you DO," he said, his face softening, "it -
it'll break my heart." And he descended onto Miles, kissing
him tenderly. "I love you," he said. "I love you and I don't
want to lose you again."

Miles opened his mouth to speak, but Julian drowned out his
words with another kiss, this one far more passionate than
tender. He reached between them and unzipped Miles's jacket,
pushing it down off his arms and throwing it aside before
removing his own jacket and then the rest of his clothing.

Miles pulled off his turtleneck and tossed it into the
corner. "You're right-" he began to say, but Julian hushed
him with a touch of a finger to his lips.

He kissed Miles again, then licked and sucked his way down
his throat, his broad chest and his flat belly, peeling off
his trousers and underwear and at last breathing in the
dark, musky scent of the blond curls that surrounded his
long, thick cock.

All I've ever wanted, he thought, kissing and licking up the
rock-hard shaft. All I've ever needed, he thought as he
swallowed him whole, running his tongue over and around the
glans as Miles moaned and writhed.

He pulled away, kissing the tip before leaning over to
retrieve the bottle of oil from the night stand. "I want
you," he moaned seductively, his eyes locked on Miles's as
he knelt between his legs. "And I know what you want."

Miles was almost incoherent with lust. "...fuck, love,
just..."

Julian knew that Miles thought of himself as a rough, macho,
two-fisted man, and most of the time he was. But there were
nights when Julian would lay him down on soft sheets and be
the one who made passionate love to him.

Miles O'Brien was the most desirable man in the galaxy, and
Julian burned for him.

Julian poured a healthy portion of the slick liquid into his
palm to warm it, then used one hand to stroke himself while
he slid a finger into Miles, letting the tip of his finger
brush against his most sensitive flesh. "Do you like this?"
he asked as he added another finger, sliding them in and out
as he stroked Miles's cock with his other hand. "Do you want
more?"

"Please...please..." Miles begged as he bucked against
Julian's hand. "Now - for fuck's sake..."

He positioned himself at Miles's opening and entered him
slowly, allowing him to adjust to his girth. "So tight," he
moaned as he pushed all the way inside, then began to fuck
Miles with smooth strokes as he grasped his cock.

Words left him and he started to pound inside of his lover
and all of it began to disappear. All of the frustration,
all of the doubt, all of the days and nights of loneliness
and uncertainty and fear and anger, it all melted away with
every thrust until there were only the two of them locked
together in a dance as old as man itself. He felt Miles'
strong hands grip his forearms and he looked down.

Their eyes locked, and that was enough: Miles came with a
roar, his orgasm splashing against their bellies as he
tightened around Julian, who thrust one more time, then
followed him over the brink with a strangled cry.

He collapsed onto Miles, rolling to his side as he drew in
great lungfuls of air. "You..."

Miles turned to him. "What?" he gasped, the shudders still
running through him.

"You, Miles Edward O'Brien," he said, catching his breath,
"are the best damn thing to ever happen to me."

Miles drew him into his arms roughly, kissing him with a
smug grin. "Of course I am."

He snorted. "God, you are such an arse."

"Yeah," he said, hugging Julian tightly as he drifted away,
"but I'm your arse."

---

"You know, I still can't believe you did all that to get me
back."

Julian blinked himself awake. "Wha - what?" he asked.

"Going against the Kai," Miles said as he propped himself up
on an elbow, "rooting around Bajoran temples, shepherding
Sisko's father around the quadrant..." He waved a hand. "You
didn't even think twice about it, did you?"

"Well, no," he replied, sitting up in bed. "I love you, I'm
your husband, I'm the father of your children; of course I'd
go after you."

Miles stole a glance at him, then looked down. "Guess I had
the wrong impression."

"What do you mean?"

Miles shrugged, his face reddening. "Well...I always thought
that maybe you, um...you were with me out of guilt more than
anything."

His eyes flew wide open. "Out of - Miles, why would you
think that?"

He huffed. "Remember that day - you know the one, when,
um..." He waved his hand in the air.

Julian nodded, prompting him to continue.

"We were standing in the turbolift and you said you'd always
be my friend. Then a few months later on you told me you'd
stay with me no matter what, unless I didn't want you,
because you felt you owed me because of what you'd done."

"I meant it, you know."

"I know, but...I guess I assumed that's all this was," he
said, gesturing to them in bed. "I mean on your side. I
didn't expect you to take on the entire Bajoran government
for me."

Julian opened his mouth to protest, but stopped himself.
Hadn't he thought the same of Miles? "I'm really no better,"
he confessed with a shrug. "I've always assumed I was just a
replacement to you. Second best. A substitute for what you
really wanted but couldn't have."

Their eyes met. "You might be second," Miles said, "but
you're not second-best. Don't ever think that." He suddenly
grinned. "What a pair of idiots we are."

Julian snickered as he pulled Miles into his arms. "You
know," he said, "there's one thing I've been wondering about
ever since the Venture arrived."

"What's that?"

"Gabriela Figueiredo and you seem close in this timeline. I
mean as friends. I don't remember you mentioning her
before."

"That's because I didn't," Miles said as he pillowed his
head on Julian's chest. "We weren't that close. I mean, we
knew each other from the Rutledge, but-" and he harrumphed.
"Another thing you and I mucked up. The first officer of the
Enterprise in the old timeline, Will Riker, you remember
him?" He gave Julian a guilty look. "In this timeline, he
died almost eight years ago."

"I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "He caught some kind of plant virus. Maybe in
the old timeline Keiko discovered it before it mutated or
whatever, but at any rate, in this timeline Riker died and
Command sent Figueiredo to be acting first officer until
Martinson retired and she could take over on the Venture.
She was pregnant at the time. About three months after she
got there the ship hit that quantum filament."

"The same one as in our timeline?"

"The same one, but in this timeline Fig and I were the ones
stuck in Ten Forward and I delivered her baby."

Julian hugged Miles a little tighter; in their original
timeline, it had been Keiko who had been stuck in Ten
Forward and Worf who had delivered their child. "Go on."

Miles blew out a breath, his eyes on the far wall. "After we
ended up in this timeline I went through my logs, and I
found a personal entry from three years ago, just after
Molly was born. Fig must have commed me to tell me that she
and Al were thinking of taking Eddy - you know in this
timeline they named him after me?"

"I guessed." It'd have been difficult not to, he thought,
especially after he'd looked the boy up and learned his name
was Eduardo Miles Figueiredo.

"Well, anyway," Miles said, "according to the log, she told
me that they were planning to take him to a place where he
could 'get more help than he could in the Federation'. I
guess she meant Adigeon Prime or some such place. At that
point I must have known about you, so I warned them. I think
I might have felt guilty because I thought Eddy's problems
were my fault."

Julian kissed the top of his head. "You do know that even
the most accomplished obstetrician can't guarantee a safe
delivery, and especially without the right equipment?"

"I know that," he replied with an impatient snort. "Go tell
the old Miles that. In any event, she and Al decided not to
go through with it. You must've found out that I told her,
because I found a whole string of log entries where you were
threatenin' to leave me." He sighed. "Don't worry, she
promised not to say anything. I did say that out straight in
the log."

"I'm glad to hear that," he murmured softly into Miles's
hair, "although I don't know whether to feel badly for the
boy or not. On one hand he wouldn't have been the same
person afterwards, but on the other he'd have a chance at a
successful life. And I doubt his parents are anything like
mine were." He looked down into Miles's face. "Did I tell
you that in this timeline I actually won the Carrington
Award?"

"Oh, Christ," Miles grumbled. "You were struttin' around
like a peacock there when you were nominated. You must have
been right insufferable in this timeline."

He grinned; if anyone was more of an expert at deflating his
ego than Miles O'Brien, he didn't know it. "In this timeline
I was apparently too sick to strut," he said. "I was four
months...it was five months before Molly was born."

"The word you're looking for there is 'pregnant', boyo."

"Fuck you very much."

"Been there, done that, got the sore arse, or did you
already forget?" Miles said with a chuckle before looking up
at him again. "Was it really that bad?" he asked, a
concerned look on his face.

He thought for a moment. "Not 'bad' per se," he finally
said, "although Kira made a joke last month that with Molly
I threw up at the opening of a subspace channel. I'm glad I
don't remember that."

Miles snickered.

"It's just - I suppose 'weird' is the best word to describe
it. You've got this alien wriggling inside you, kicking the
hell out of you, tiring you out and making you sick to your
stomach, and then there are all the hormones you have to
take every day. Do you know what it's like to be starved for
affection and completely impotent at the same time?" he
asked. "And then there's having your body and your ankles
swell up like a Denobulan puffbird, half the men on board
looking at you as if you were some kind of monster or,
worse, traitor to manhood, half the women on board thinking
you're 'cute' and wanting to coddle you as if you were about
to break-"

"Guess I can't talk you into goin' through it again?"

Julian snorted. "You already talked me into it twice."

"I did?"

"At least that's what I said in my logs. When you were gone,
I found a whole series of logs I'd recorded just before we
changed the timeline, and all of them had to do with you
nagging me to have another child."

"It was my idea?" Miles asked, a guilty look suddenly
stealing over his face.

"You wanted another child but you were apparently worried
that everyone would laugh at you if you gestated a child. On
the other hand you didn't want us to go ex vivo or hire a
surrogate."

"Well, I wouldn't want ex vivo here, would you?" he asked
with a shudder. "What if we had to evacuate and leave the
child behind? And a surrogate..." His face suddenly turned
beet red.

"What?"

"Well...you won't like hearin' this, but I, um, I sort of
liked the idea of you bein' pregnant. When you were."

He frowned. "Liked."

Miles had the decency to look away.

"You're serious."

"I can't help it," he explained. "It's just - when you were
lyin' there, your belly full of my child, it just - it did
something for me."

"Your kink is my being fat, swollen, exhausted, impotent,
needy, and nauseated." He lay back and stared at the
ceiling. "Wonderful. I am a man, you know."

At that Miles chuckled. "Trust me," he said, "it's pretty
damn hard to forget that at the moment." He suddenly yawned.
"Listen, just - sleep on the idea, all right? I'm going to
try to get some sleep."

He sighed as Miles rolled over, then finally closed his eyes
and tried to rest.

But sleep wouldn't come. It wasn't Miles's snoring that was
keeping him awake or even what he'd said to Julian earlier;
he simply couldn't stop thinking about the events of the
past three weeks. He was starting to see a pattern.

Okay, he told himself: let's imagine that the Dominion was
behind all of it. The virus was Vorta, so it wasn't an
outlandish suggestion. Their first salvo would have been to
introduce the meningitis virus to Bajor, a simple task given
that the virus could be spread through casual contact. Then,
when the disease reached epidemic status in Lonar, they
helped Dukat to escape, then (and this was the tricky part)
arranged for him to be possessed by a pah-wraith. They then
made sure that the Defiant was in the Gamma Quadrant before
having Dukat release the wraith into the Orb of
Contemplation, sealing the wormhole and separating the
Bajoran people from both the Prophets and their Emissary.

But the Defiant was only in the Gamma Quadrant because the
Bajoran government had asked Starfleet to investigate the
Lemna outage on an emergency basis despite the fact that it
had only been out of service for three hours. If they had
agreed to wait for the Venture to arrive (or if the
Gryphon's phase inducers hadn't been sabotaged), the Defiant
would have still been in the Alpha Quadrant and Deep Space
Nine wouldn't have been undermanned.

And then there was that edict of Winn's calling Starfleet's
use of the station an occupation...

Was somebody in the Bajoran government behind this?

It made sense, he thought; why otherwise would Bajor have
been so much against them retrieving the tenth orb? Why
would-

And a sudden realization brought him to his feet in an
instant.

He threw on a clean T-shirt and a pair of trousers and
tiptoed out to the main room, switching on the terminal as
he sat at the desk. "Computer," he said in a low voice,
"display the blood screening records for members of the
Vedek Assembly and the Bajoran executive branch over the
last six months."
 The data seemed to be in order, he thought, as he skimmed
over the long lists of names, dates, and results from the
monthly screenings mandated by the Bajoran government.
Shakaar's name was first on the executive list, followed by
the leader of the official opposition, Krath Milnar, and the
speaker of the legislature, Mikar Elian. The list of vedeks
included Halan and Merel, but there was no record for Kai
Winn. He wondered if her records were stored elsewhere.
"Computer, locate and display blood screening records for
the Office of the Kai."

The figures came up. Winn had been scrupulous in having her
blood tests done by the physician attached to the Vedek
Assembly - until five months ago. Since that date, nothing.

He noted the date of the last blood screening. "Display a
list of all official enactments issued by the Office of the
Kai from stardate 51325.0 to the present day."

There were 232 proclamations, edicts, decrees, and orders on
the list, including a series on Advice to Vedeks in Foreign
Parts, proclamations of holy days, announcements of visits
by the Kai to various shrines, and even the decree
proscribing belief in a tenth orb (with a corresponding
retraction). He didn't see anything...hold on, he thought:
what did 'sacrosanctity of the Kai's person' mean?

He downloaded the edict.

'Upon receiving news of the recovery of the Prophecies of
Ranel, in which is it written in the First Prophecy that
'the Kai's blood shall not be shed', and after consultations
with the First Minister, after being briefed by members of
the Vedek Assembly, and after conversations with members of
the Legislative Assembly and with the Emissary to the
Prophets and other officials, I have come to the conclusion
that it is the will of the Prophets that the person of the
Kai is sacrosanct. Let it be enacted that from this day
forward, no individual, group, or entity shall injure or
harm the Kai or disrupt his or her bodily integrity,
whatsoever be the reason. Dated this 14th day of Misara,
A.R. 6.'

Five days before the proclamation about the tenth orb, and
eight days before the announcement that the Kai intended to
make a pilgrimage to the Shanadar Temple at Marala in Lonar
Province on the 15th of Kelar - Ground Zero of the epidemic,
nine days before the first case of meningitis was diagnosed.

Fuck.

He erased all traces of his searches, deleted the files he'd
downloaded, and switched off his terminal before returning
to bed. As he slid back between the covers and lay his head
on the pillow beside Miles's, his mind on what he would tell
Sisko the following morning and the blood tests he intended
to give Miles, the rest of the Defiant crew, and even his
own daughters, the words of the female Founder came back to
him: the Dominion is everywhere.

Everywhere.

---

The End