ST:DS9:

Differences

by Anonymous
(author of "A Lasting Peace.")
Comments for the author may be sent to the website manager for forwarding to the author).

Later Kira would swear she had felt him enter the room, that first time; that she had felt the air sliced in two by the pain he carried with him. She had turned from her seat in the conference room and there was Odo: slim, quiet, more self-contained than ever, slipping past her to stand by the viewport, his usual place. She had not seen him in almost three weeks.

But not so usual: this time, she noticed, he stood more firmly ensconced in the shadow than he tended to, and he leaned against the bulkhead, because his legs were tired. He was being careful not to meet her eyes, and she missed the calm blue gaze that had always steadied her, the rope of communication that had stretched between them in every staff meeting, even after their Tuesday mornings had ceased.

It was the first staff meeting since his return.

They waited quietly, not looking at each other or speaking. Then Sisko entered, and Dax, and the others, and the meeting started. Halfway through there was a short silence, as the senior staff considered their options in some diplomatic dilemma, and Kira felt the hairs raise up on the small of her back.

She realized a second later that she could hear him. Hear him breathing.

She hadn't realized until then how carefully she was watching him, every sense locked in on him, as if she were still in the Resistance and attempting an ambush. She shook herself and tried to concentrate on the information entering the datapadd in her hand, wondering in embarrassment if she had been staring. She knew it was the last thing he wanted right now: curiosity, questions, pity. Sisko asked her a question, and she answered, grateful for the distraction. He had not asked Odo anything, she realized, all meeting, and she knew instantly that it was Benjamin's way of going easy on him. She knew as instantly that Odo hated it.

It was not until the very end of the conference that she unconsciously let her gaze seek Odo again. She took in his form, superficially similar to the one he had lost, except that the uniform didn't quite fit him -- the best Garak had been able to do on short notice, she was sure. Her eyes traveled from his face to his waist, to the edge of his sleeve -- and stopped.

Sisko said, "Dismissed." At the same instant her brain registered what she was seeing, and froze in cold horror.

Living on the station, she hadn't seen anything like it for a long time -- perhaps since the Occupation, and the Resistance, with their limited medical capabilities. Running down Odo's wrist and around his hand was a long line of glistening dark red. Dried blood.

She didn't move as her friend left the room, didn't move as the others followed.

"Kira!"

She looked up into the brown eyes of the Emissary.

"You look like you were a thousand miles away. You're dismissed, Major."

His tone held amusement, and guarded concern. She ignored both, nodded sharply, and left.

*

The corridor outside Odo's quarters was as dark and bland as any other corridor in the station. Kira wondered what it was that made it seem familiar, since it lacked any identifying characteristics. Maybe the air here was worn from the past, the nights spent talking -- herself in the only chair, Odo standing or leaning against one of the arching structures he kept. She had always wondered how he used them when she wasn't around; furniture maybe? Where does a changeling sleep?

But Odo wasn't a changeling anymore, she reminded herself. He was a humanoid. He had a heartbeat and O-negative blood. If you cut him, he could bleed.

She stood outside the doorway, undecided, until she realized she looked foolish to passersby. Bracing herself, Kira stepped to the call panel and pressed it. There was no answer.
"Odo," she said softly to the door, "It's me. Kira."

Again there was no answer, and she remembered the dark line along his hand, and wondered in sudden panic how long it took humans to bleed to death. Kira raised her hand and keyed in the unlock sequence he'd given her when he'd first gotten his own quarters, long ago. It was a good sign, she thought as the door slid open, that he had not changed it.

Kira stepped into Odo's quarters and stood still in shock.

They were utterly bare. The structures were gone, except for the single chair; in their place was emptiness, and a strange smell. The source of the smell she pinpointed quickly: near the replicator there was a small pile of half-eaten plates of food, some of them several days old by their look. Other than that the quarters looked uninhabited, and their unaccustomed vastness gave them a wild, wasteland feel that Kira didn't like at all. She couldn't see Odo anywhere, and the doorway to the next room was dark. Caught by the strangely disturbing thought that he might be asleep, she called his name.

When there was no reply she touched her commbadge. "Computer," she said, "locate Constable Odo."

"Constable Odo is not on board," informed the automated voice that had always somehow reminded Kira of Lwaxana Troi. Confused, she turned towards the door.

"The computer," said a voice from the darkness, "hasn't yet been reprogrammed to recognize me like -- this."

Kira turned back. "Odo?"

"Please leave, Major," he said, and now she could hear the stress in his voice. She'd heard him sound that way only once before; and that time he had been struggling to keep his form.

"The hell I will," she said, taking a tentative step toward the inner door. "Odo, what happened to your quarters?"

"Major," he grated. "Please."

She could see him now, dimly, through the doorway. This room was empty too. Odo was sitting with his back against the wall and his legs drawn up to his chest. He still wore his uniform, but it hung slackly on his body and she could tell that the collar was undone in the back. Something glimmered on the floor beside him. Kira had to take another three steps into the gloom before she recognized it as a butterknife.

"Odo," she said softly, "What happened?"

As soon as the words were out she felt how stupid and awkward they were. But he was already chuckling mirthlessly.

"I should think," he told her, "that would be obvious."

"Do you really want me to go?" she asked, ashamed.

His head snapped up, and their eyes met. "No," he said at last. "You're here. You might as well stay."

Kira nodded, feeling as oddly honored as she had the first time he'd shown her his quarters, and moved to the doorway, where the light from the outer room wouldn't blind her. From here she could see that the room wasn't quite bare; in one dark corner stood the shadowy figure of a potted plant. "How has it been?" she asked gently.

"Terrible," he said.

There was a silence.

"What happened to all the things you had in here?"

"Scrap," he said roughly. "I...have no use for them now."

"But -- where have you been sleeping?"

"On the floor."

They fell silent again. Kira felt against the roof of her mouth all the things she knew she should say, and she felt also how inadequate they were. In the dark before her Odo stirred. "It's not that bad really," he said. "There are many similarities between solids and -- shapeshifters. Sleep, for instance --" his voice strengthened "-- sleep is not unlike regeneration. In fact, they're almost the same. There's a lot about being -- humanoid that I find very familiar."

"Really?"

"No. Not really." He shuddered, and Kira realized with horror that he was crying. "Dammit," he muttered thickly. "I can never keep from doing that..."

Kira was moving then, through the doorway and across the room to settle a few feet away from him. She wanted to touch him, to comfort him, but something about his utter helplessness told her not to. Odo's eyes were closed, and the tears ran one by one along his cheeks to his chin. She wondered insanely if they would taste salty.

"You must be terrified," she whispered. He nodded without opening his eyes.

"Every breath -- I can't control it --" He shuddered again, opening his eyes and making the most conscious effort at composure she'd seen since the Resistance. Kira waited until his breathing was slower.

Then she asked as softly as she could, "The -- the mess in the other room...?"

"I've been eating," he said slowly, as if he were confessing to a crime. "I -- I've been having some trouble --"

"You haven't been able to keep it down," she said, understanding, and he nodded once.

"I can't bring myself to touch them, afterwards," he added.

"Ah, Odo --"

"Please -- don't -- pity me, Major," he rasped, looking directly at her. "I couldn't bear that."

Kira looked away, not wanting him to see the tears in her own eyes. Her gaze fell on the glittering butterknife at his feet. The rim of the blade was dark. Kira looked up swiftly, her gaze clearing. "Odo --?"

He was looking at the floor. "What have you been doing?" she demanded. "What --" Heedless of his boundaries, she caught at his hand and drew it upwards, so that the dark veneer of blood along his palm sparkled between them.

"Kira." His voice was barely audible, it was so low.

"Where else?" she demanded.

He hesitated.

"Show me."

There was a fresh cut along his collarbone, under his tunic; another one traced the line of his ribs, and it was deep but scabbed over. There were three short lines on his right upper arm, and Kira noted mindlessly that he was left-handed. A long shallow gouge ran up the inside of his right leg.

She counted them in silence, carefully drawing off the uniform, undressing him as she would a child, leaving only the last undergarments. She noticed him relax in his nakedness, letting the defenses fall, as she imagined he used to in regeneration. She tried not to notice his pain as the scabs caught at his clothing, the contrast between his pale skin and the darkness of his wounds.

"You did this, didn't you." she asked finally. It was not a question. "You did this to yourself."

There was a long, dead moment. Then Odo nodded, just barely.

"Why?"

He shook his head, twisting it from side to side as if he were trying to break it off. "To feel --" he managed at last. "To feel anything, even -- pain...to try to -- escape the confines -- of this form..." He would not look at her. Kira still held his hand, and she felt it clench around hers. "I can't feel it," he whispered. "This room -- you -- I can't feel any of it."

"What do you mean?" she whispered back helplessly.

"Before...I could feel the shape of things, their -- their position in relation to me, at all times. I could -- walk into a room and know where every thing was, and the distances between them. This body -- it's blind --"

He took a long shaking breath and held it. They were both still until he continued. "I feel as if -- everything is faint. Everything is fading." He shook his head. "I imagine this is how -- Vedek Bareil must have felt, at the end..."

Her sharp intake of breath seemed to wake him, and he turned quickly, his eyes widening. She could see his face clearly for the first time, reddened and streaked impossibly by tears. "Major -- I'm sorry, I didn't mean --"

"-- To hurt me?" she hissed out the words from between her teeth.

"No." He made no move towards her, but his tone was so gentle that she recoiled, shooting to her feet and beginning the first lap of pacing the room.

"Well, you did," she said finally, meeting the wall and turning.

His eyes held her gaze for a moment, and dropped. "I'm sorry," he repeated. Kira remained standing, watching him. She wondered suddenly why what he'd said had unnerved her so much -- he had scared her, and she felt once again too close to losing a loved one. Loved one? Well, Odo was that. And watching him fall apart did remind her of Bareil -- the dead look he'd had in his eyes, the numbness in his voice...Nerys, she heard him say, I can barely feel you anymore...

She shook herself, forcing herself to the brisk efficiency she knew was best with the wounded. "There's a medkit in the bulkhead under the replicator," she said, returning to kneel beside him. "So we won't have to notify Doctor Bashir. I know you'd rather we didn't."

He nodded, not looking at her. "I know...I can depend upon you, Major," he said hoarsely.

"I don't want you hurting yourself," Kira murmured. "There are...there are better ways to use this body you've been given."

He looked up. "You mean, `sentenced to.'"

"`Given.' It's a gift. There are things it can feel besides pain."

"Not for me, Major," he said bitterly.

Kira reached out, slowly, with one hand, and ran her fingers along the skin -- unworn, improbably smooth -- parallel to the wound on his side. He stiffened but did not shudder, and for a long moment they sat quietly together: the near-nude no-longer-changeling and the uniformed Bajoran. Then suddenly Kira yielded to impulse and ran her hand over his hair.

"We'll talk tomorrow. Oh-six-hundred? I'll bring dinner."

"I don't ea--" he started automatically, and stopped. "That would be fine, Major," he finished with dignity.

"I'll see you then," she said. "Sleep well."

He started to reply but she was already on her feet again, walking.

At the door to Odo's quarters Kira paused and looked back. But he was hidden in the shadow.

*

"He's kicking!" The delighted face of Miles O'Brien peered up at Kira, then bent again in concentration over her belly.

"Miles," his wife told him from behind, "she's only in the third month. You can't feel the baby kick yet." She smiled sympathetically at Kira. "The Major's probably just hungry."

Kira smiled back at her, and Miles lifted his head. "That's right, it's nearly oh-five-fifteen already. Will you be staying for dinner with us then, Major?" He winked. "Eating for two, now..."

Kira winced, wondering how many times she would hear that phrase before the six months were over. "Actually, I'm having dinner with Odo," she said, and watched their faces automatically crease in concern. I wonder how many times Odo will have to see that expression, she thought in sudden empathy.

"How's he doing?" Miles asked, his voice soft. "I was wondering when he'll feel up to going kayaking again."

"He's all right," Kira said tightly, sensing that it was not hers to say any more. Let Odo regain society when he felt ready.

She left the O'Briens' with a sense of relief. She had been their guest for the past weeks, and she could already feel them adopting her into their family, even as she had adopted their fetus into her body. It unnerved her. It wasn't that she minded Miles' kind, blustery affection, or Keiko's good-natured serenity. She liked watching them, their ease in their home, the joy they took in parenting Molly and in hovering over the child in Kira's womb. But something in Keiko reminded Kira too much of her own mother, dead long ago; something in the security of their family life reminded her too much of what she would never have.

When she'd lost Bareil, she reflected, she'd lost that: the possibility of family. Being with Shakaar was familiar, comforting, a reminder of the pseudo-family she'd had in his Resistance cell. But Kira knew she was getting too old for third chances. Odo wasn't the only one who'd been wandering too long alone in the universe.

She was disturbed, too, by the ambivalence she felt about the life growing within her. She'd expected to feel, with the transplant of the fetus, the joy and fulfillment that went along with motherhood. Instead she felt -- nothing.

Idly, Kira wondered if a part of her heart weren't dead.

*

In the semi-dark of his quarters, Odo lay on the floor, motionless, concentrating on keeping his body still. If he moved, he knew, he would go mad. He felt a spasm run through the muscles of his upper arm, and he felt the itch in his side where the wound was almost whole again.

He'd discovered pain, and the knife, by accident, trying to eat. The knife had slipped, and the blade had pinched his finger hard against the plate. Not enough to cut; the knife was dull. But enough to hurt.

Cutting with it had taken some perseverance. He remembered the despair he'd felt at the first wound, watching the blood seep out along the ribs. If only he himself could escape so easily, could flow out through the thick numb skin of the body, liquid and free. He knew it was impossible. But the cutting had continued anyway. Somehow, it helped...

Enough. "Computer," he said aloud. "Time."

"Oh-six-oh-four hours," the voice stated. Odo pulled himself to his feet, wondering at how difficult he found that simple task. Of course, he thought. I'm fifty-six. That's -- old, now.

"Lights," he commanded. She was due here any second --

The door chime sounded, and this time she waited until he had called, "Come!" Then Kira strode in, her arms full of a huge earthenware pot.

"Major," he greeted her.

She grinned at him over the top of the pot. "Is there somewhere I can put this thing?"

He looked around, lost in his own quarters. "I -- I suppose on the console."

She nodded briskly and marched over. "You'll have to get some furniture, Odo," she commented, putting the pot down on the top of the console. "There are some sects on Bajor who live without it, but unless you plan to join them, you'd better get a table, at least. And a bed."

"I'll -- see to it," he managed. The aroma coming from the covered pot was intriguing; smell was still new to him, but he was slowly learning to work with this sudden sense. "What --?"

"Eccraa'ih," she said, uncovering it with a small flourish. "Comfort food."

"That doesn't look replicated."

"It's not."

"You --"

"Captain Sisko isn't the only cook on the station." Kira handed him a spoon. "Sit." Odo sat, gingerly, in the desk chair.

"You're not going to feed it to me, are you?" he asked, with a pale attempt at his customary irascibility. Kira smiled.

"If necessary. Try some."

Odo reached forwards, craning his head to see over the top of the console, and carefully scooped up a mouthful. Holding his right hand carefully under the spoon so as not to spill, he navigated the food back to his mouth -- tilted his head back, bit, and swallowed. He reached for another spoonful, not meeting Kira's eyes.

She watched him repeat the performance before she interrupted. "What are you doing?"

He looked at her blankly. "Eating, Major," he said, his voice a mixture of dignity and despair.

"That's not how you do it." Kira reached forward and dislodged the spoon from his grip. "The objective here isn't just to fill the belly, you know."

"No?"

"No! That's my best eccraa'ih you're bolting down. No wonder you've been having trouble." She narrowed her eyes, remembering the pile of dishes she'd seen the day before, now gone. "What have you been eating, anyway?"

"I do have some knowledge of nutrition, Major. I've been eating from all four food groups."

"All at once?"

"No! In sequence."

"You just asked the replicator for -- dairy products?"

"I -- yes. Or meats, or grains or vegetables."

"Odo!" Kira grabbed up the spoon in impatience and took a large scoop. "Here --"

The spoon hovered in her hand, before his closed mouth, for several seconds. Odo looked at it, and then at her, and their eyes locked. Finally he opened his mouth and she spooned the food in.

"Wait!" she commanded. "Don't swallow. Close your eyes."

After a moment of hesitation he did as she asked.

"Savour it," Kira said. "Taste it." She watched his face, an immobile mask. Frustrated, she cast about for words. How could she describe eating to a changeling? Or even an ex-changeling?

"The gri yei spice -- can you taste it?" she began awkwardly. "I -- I always thought it tastes green. Like sharp grass. And textures, the way the sauce melts away, the way the -- the meat separates on your tongue." She had her hands on his shoulders now, her voice low and urgent, feeling ridiculous.

His face still didn't change. "Now you can swallow," she finished. She dropped her hands, cursing herself.

He opened his eyes, slowly, and looked straight into hers. "That was -- extraordinary," he said softly. "May I --?"

She handed him the spoon; he took another bite, and closed his eyes. She watched as slowly, very slowly, he smiled. It was a small smile, delicate and secret, as though he was unaware he was smiling.

*

Hours later, she was still there. They were seated on the floor now, the empty eccraa'ih pot resting under Kira's elbow. Odo leaned his weight back on one hand; the other hung loose across his knee.

He had begun to talk, hesitantly, about the past week, and the changes and emotions it had brought. The words came haltingly, but it occurred to Kira that she had never heard him speak about himself at such length; and that while he always spoke honestly, he had never been so frank with her before.

"The strangest thing," he was saying, his voice soft, "is trying to get used to -- fitting in."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I -- grew up, I suppose you would say, in a laboratory. I've always been aware of how -- different I was, from my caretakers, and later my coworkers, even -- even you, Major." He cast about with his hands as he spoke, searching the air for words. Kira was struck by the unfamiliarity of the gesture, and realized that she'd never seen Odo talk with his hands before. A side effect, she thought.

"It took me a long time to begin to accept what I was," he went on slowly. "I'm used to being -- alien. Abnormal. Now, I'm no different from you -- but I feel more alien than ever -- to myself."

"Well, it will take some getting used to," she said, again feeling inadequate.

"That's what everyone says. Quark, Bashir, Ziyal --"

"Ziyal?"

"She was in to see Garak. Though I have to say I don't know what she sees in him."

"Well, me neither, but there's nothing I could say that would deter her. I was the same way." Kira grinned. "Besides, she's waited so long, for love..."

Odo flinched. She looked up. "Are you all right? Heartburn?"

"No." He sat still for a minute, then shook his head. "I'm fine. You were saying?"

"Just as long as she doesn't end up like me," Kira murmured. Odo glanced at her sharply, but let it go.

"I suppose you're both right, Major. It will take some getting used to." He looked down again. "Thank you. For tonight."

"I -- just wanted to show you that not all of solid life is unpleasant."

"No," he said, "not all." He looked up at her again, suddenly. "It did taste green. You were right."

The smile invaded Kira's face from the eyes downward. "We used to eat eccraa'ih on the march. It's easy to make -- the gri yei grew wild on the hillsides, just about the only thing still growing in Dahkur Province then. My mother used to cook it for me, when I was little." She grew pensive, and the smile faded. "They say good food is important in difficult times, Odo. Eating is the most basic necessity. It -- reminds us that we're still alive."

"Still alive..." the words rumbled from deep in his chest. They both heard the words he had left unspoken, and for Odo they echoed in the Foundress' voice: ...Perhaps it would have been better if he were dead...

"Odo --"

"Major." He glanced at her, and she was startled by the studied blandness of his expression; it was the one he wore all through the day. "It's been a lovely evening. I must confess I'm -- I'm tired." He smiled ruefully. "Perhaps tomorrow you could take me shopping for that bed."

"Of course." They stood together. Anxious to regain the intimacy they had abruptly lost, Kira took his hand in her own and squeezed it ineptly. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, Major," he replied, following her to the door. Kira had the sudden intense impression that he needed her to go, needed to be alone to vent the demons he could not bear to let her see. She let go of his hand as the doors slid shut behind her, closing on the masklike face of her friend.

*

The bed was first: soft but firm, wide, and slightly concave, like a bucket or an egg. But that, Kira had told herself, had been a matter of necessity. And she hadn't bought it for him; she had merely called it to his attention.

But a few days later as she was passing what had been Garak's shop she had stopped, thinking of Odo in that ill-fitting uniform, thinking of what it would be to possess no other clothes, to wear the layers of that coarse fabric next to her skin every minute.

Kira had gone in and spent a few minutes with her hands, touching the skeins of cloth, satins, velvets. In the end she'd stopped by Odo's quarters the next evening with a package: a velvet tunic, lined with brushed Bolean silk, and silk loose slacks, all in a very dark blue. It was extravagant, and she knew it; and that had come out of her own account. The look in the Constable's face when he touched the silk, half apprehension and half pleasure, made it worthwhile.

It came with complete unexpectedness in the days and weeks that followed, this generosity Kira hadn't known she possessed. She brought him little things: food, a pair of slippers, a light so that he could read comfortably in bed. Once she had even stopped and stared at something Quark was hawking -- a handheld device he called the "automated wormhole of love" -- before she had shuddered off the notion and continued on her way.

Kira never questioned what she was doing. She would only see flowers and think, I wonder if Odo knows about jasmine yet. She showered upon Odo all the caretaking instinct she had expected to find in motherhood. She never thought to give her behaviour a name, and if she had, she never would have thought to call it --

Courting.

*

He woke, shocked first at the suddenness of waking, and then at the fact that he had been asleep at all. He was sure he hadn't noticed the transition from visual to psychic darkness. And yet -- Odo struggled to sit up against the shallow bell of his bed, twisting on the lamp at his head so that a little light spread across the covers. His sleep had not been blank.

He had slept little in his life, thus far -- and when he had he'd slept fitfully, always awakening suddenly, not knowing why. Bashir had tested him, assuring him his REM-sleep patterns were perfectly normal, for a human insomniac. Odo had waited nervously, the first nights, for this holoshow the solids called dreaming. But in the past two months it had not come; or at least, he had remembered nothing of it.

But this -- Odo ran one hand over his body, damp with sweat, warm. He let his hand rest on his stomach where his breath ran in and out, feeling the blood pulse through him. His body seemed pervaded by emotion, as subtle and ubiquitous as radiation, and on sudden impulse Odo closed his eyes, concentrating on the feeling, following it...

The images of the dream came back slowly, and as they did they possessed him. A colour -- like blood, like amber; a feeling in his skin, a feeling he remembered from the Link; but not the Great Link. This was what he had felt at the first touches of the female Foundress, the first wordless communication as her substance had bled into his. What he had felt when someone, once, had touched him on the chest. It had not been his chest then, merely his body -- Odo realized suddenly that he had been dreaming as a liquid, and at that moment the dream opened up and once again took him inside.

He was utterly still, his spine stiffening, his arms clasped about himself. After a moment Odo clambered out of the bed, feeling the cool floor against his feet like a token of reality. It was only a dream. He swayed to the doorframe and hung against it, almost clinging. Her hands and the length of her, pressed against him, upon him, in him. He pushed his hair, lank from sleep, away from his face and ordered light in a voice that sounded harsh even to his own ears.

The certainty. The sweet certainty of her weight, of her unwavering presence. The way she smelled, the way she moved, her form, so certainly Kira, the hot pressure of her enveloping him -- what had he been to her, in his dream? Human? Changeling? Odo only remembered the release, the loss of form, as it had been with the Foundress, the great relief. And she had understood that he...Kira had understood...

"Hot water," he rapped to the replicator, and waited as it formed obediently before him. I'll tell her, he thought suddenly, knowing himself for a coward and a fool. The dream felt so close, so real -- he could almost feel her breasts against his skin, her moisture at his groin, as if the bed he had just left had been the bed of their lovemaking. He could taste in his soul the sweet summer that was Kira Nerys as he knew her: warm, deep and rich. Odo reached for the water.

The mug fell to the floor in a graceful arc, shattering slowly on the metal deck. Odo watched, his hand still in the air, observing the parabola of its course with a strange detachment. The shards gleamed with spilt water, droplets delicately spraying the deck below, dark in the dim light.

Odo reached behind him to find the chair and sat in it carefully, putting first one and then the other elbow on his knees, lowering his face into his hands. He was shaking, and his limbs felt light and hollow. I only reached, he thought. I only reached for it, and it wasn't where -- where it should have been. It flew from my hand. Odo pressed his palms against his stinging eyes. Blind. I'm blind.

*

"You asked me to come?"

"Yes, yes, right over here. I wanted you to have a look at this."

"What is it, Doctor?"

"It's the normal internal structure of a carbon molecule."

"I see...Your point...?"

"Now, this--"

"Ah. Let me guess. That is the structure of the carbon found in my cells."

"Precisely. To put it quite succinctly, Constable, your cells are anomalous on the atomic level. It's rather cleverly done, really. Now, you can see, this isn't as stable as the normal molecule. If we could find a way to -- tip that balance, we might accomplish a -- a phase shift."

"What you're saying is that I would be --"

"A liquid."

"-- a changeling?"

"Yes. Exactly. ...Odo?"

"I...I'm sorry, Doctor. You'll...The carbon. You won't give up on it. Will you."

"I won't give up on it, Odo. You have my word."

"I was afraid of that."

*

He had come in in a rotten mood that night, and it hadn't lifted. He'd said almost nothing over dinner, and Kira had eventually stopped talking too, until they sat in silence. Odo ate with one arm around himself, holding his ribs, his back hunched over the plate. When he turned his head, Kira heard the sound of something breaking.

Again to the other side, and this time there was a loud snap. Kira finally found her voice. "Odo," she said, "Are you all right?"

He looked back at her across the crowd of empty plates on her dinner table. "The muscles get tight," he snapped. "Bashir says it's stress." He stretched against his hand, and a trio of little popping noises echoed in the air.

"I didn't mean that," she said quietly. "I meant, are you all right?"

He looked up sharply -- almost as if in alarm, though there was something...darker to his expression, she thought. "I'm fine."

"What happened?"

He shook his head, dropped his eyes, turned away. "I said I was fine, Major," he managed. "Don't you believe me? Do you want to take a sample of my blood?"

She gave him a long, narrow glance. He kept his head down. "Odo," she said. "Come on, let me help."

"How, Major?" he asked roughly, sarcastically, bitterly, not lifting his head.

She got up abruptly and left the table.

Odo sat in shock.

He hadn't expected her to desert him. I should be used to it by now, he told himself. And I can't say I blame her, Ital. Why should she put up with your bitterness? Why do you hurt her? You hurt everyone around you, you are no good for people, you are refuse, you are plastic, you are a chair. You are nothing. He took an involuntary breath in, and it sounded as sharp as a knife. The cold of the day, the long, hard day, the little inconveniences, the alien sensations, the helplessness, the curiosity of others, the intolerable memories, all closed over him at once and he felt he could neither breathe nor move.

The warmth of her hands descended on the back of his neck, warmth like a blessing. For a minute he couldn't tell if she were hurting him, fighting him, or whether this was some kind of affection. Then the first wave of pleasure spread over him, and the knots in his muscles opened like flowers. He shuddered.

"How's that feel?" he heard Kira's voice ask behind him, close and warm. "...Yet another unexpected skill from the Resistance."

"I...What?"

"I'm giving you a massage, Constable. You looked like you could use it."

The second wave hit him with her voice, but this one was even more unexpected, and he brought his hand up to his face, twisted now into a distorted mask, and he felt the liquid come into his eyes.

Kira said nothing until he was done, and he was done very quickly this time, struggling against the tears. It reminded him strongly of struggling to hold his form. Her hands kept up their motion on his shoulders through it all, sending the pain arcing through his flesh that somehow turned into pleasure. She was rough; her knuckles dug deep into his skin; it was the most comfort he'd ever known. "It's okay," she said at last. "Kindness does that to you sometimes."

"I learn something new every day," he said between gulps, and laughed.

"I'm not hurting you?" He shook his head. "Wait here then." Her hands left.

"Where are you going?" he said, looking after her. Kira had crossed to a cupboard and was on her knees, rummaging.

"I think there's some left, from last time Edon was here... Massage oil."

"...Oil...?"

"Got it!" Kira straightened, the little bottle in her hand. "Actually," she continued dryly, "I hope this is still good...it's been there a while." She turned to him, smiling, in time to see the trepidation in his face.

"I --" he began, his hands out a little in front of him, warning her away, but Kira had already gotten behind him. "Loosen your shirt," she said, "you don't want to get oil on it." Without waiting for him, she undid the shirt along the length of his spine. Odo shrugged out of it partway, so that his shoulders were bare.

"Ready?"

He spread his hands before him: I suppose so, Major.

She laughed and lowered her hands to his shoulders, spreading the scented oil over his skin. Kira frowned in concentration, feeling her way into the geography of tension in the flesh under his skin. Odo relaxed into the rhythms of her strong, sharp-fingered hands, wondering at the easiness of her touch. From this I know what it would be like, he thought. I am an excellent detective. From this I know what it would be to make love with you, Kira Nerys.

"How's this?" she asked.

"Fine," he said automatically, then amended, "Terrifying...and...delicious."

"Terrifying?"

"Well -- overwhelming. It's the scent, you know."

"You don't like it?"

"No! I mean, Yes -- I do. But it's -- a little disorienting -- actually smelling it. The rest is peculiar -- it keeps feeling as if this ought to hurt. But it doesn't. It feels good."

"Good...are you always this tense?"

"Yes. Well -- It's been a long day."

"So what happened?" she asked softly.

"I went to see Bashir." he said. "He says there's a way -- he might find a way -- to change me back." Odo huffed out a laugh which was not laughter.

"Odo, that's wonderful," Kira said. "What's wrong with that?"

He shook his head and was silent for a long time. Kira let him keep his silence; it was so different from the one he'd held through dinner. When she began to think he wasn't going to answer he said stiffly, "It isn't my right."

"What?"

"It isn't my right. No one seems to understand that. This body -- it isn't something that's just been -- done to me. It's a sentence. I've been -- I've been judged."

"What are you saying?" she whispered.

"I don't have the right to -- change back. Even if I could."

She spun around so quickly that it took his breath away. Kira was kneeling before him, one hand still on his shoulder, glaring straight into his eyes. He didn't dare break her gaze. "What do you want, Odo?" she demanded quietly. "A court-martial? If you want it, I can order one."

"I --"

"Is that what it will take?"
"-- No changeling had ever harmed another."

"That's bullshit and you know it. They harmed you, have you forgotten that? They're -- they sent you away, they're directly responsible for those years in Mora's lab, and now they're giving you more...more pain. Odo. What is justice?"

"Justice is...the restoration of the universe to its proper order."

"Is this justice?"

At last he looked away. Kira brought her hand up under his chin. "Is it?" she asked. "Why did you kill that changeling, Odo?"

Odo stayed perfectly still, afraid to move, balancing his whole body on that one hand beneath his chin. He felt the fine hairs on his body bristle in waves, and he let them, let the blood sing through his veins, let the heat swell in his groin, with a feeling of surrender. Let it, he thought. Let it take me where it will. Let it take me to my grave. Bring it on.

"I killed him in self-defense," he said, but that wasn't the truth. She deserved the truth. "I -- killed him in anger. He -- he was in me, he was -- linked with me. I -- couldn't stand what he was saying. Come home, Odo, he said, and then he reached for my last secrets --" He shuddered. "I killed him in anger. I murdered him. I deserve this."

"What makes you so special?" she asked -- gently. His head snapped up and he stared at her, wide-eyed. The glare was gone; she was laughing. "Odo, Odo, what makes so you goddam different?" Kira took her hand from his chin, held it up before him, made a fist. "You think I'm not as guilty as you?"

He was still staring. "You have got to put it down, Odo. We were in combat." She smiled sadly and dropped her hand. "It happens." Odo looked into her eyes and saw -- mercy.

He said her name.

Kira brought her hand up just under the hem of his shirt, until it touched his skin.

Odo jerked away. "What is it?" she asked. He didn't answer, and she looked down and drew up the shirt, until she could see the fresh red line of a new wound. Where she'd touched him her fingertips were stained with his blood.

This time the rejection was real. She thrust herself away from him so violently that the chair where he was sitting rocked. She could barely speak.

"Get out."

"What?"

She breathed hard, her chest rising; but her voice scared him more then this, because it was absolutely flat, colourless, conversational.

"I don't have to take care of you," she said. "I don't want to nurse you back to health. I don't want this. There are enough people cut and bleeding in this world, Odo. They don't have to be the people I love -- and -- they don't have to be doing it to themselves." She couldn't look at him. "Get out."

He got out.

*

She was left alone in the middle of the room, shaking, until she stumbled to a chair and sat down. Shaking, she splayed her fingers before her, willing her hands not to become fists. He'd called her -- Kira clenched her eyes shut, willing not to heave the violence of her anger around her quarters like a mad, caged beast. She didn't want any broken furniture.

When her breathing had slowed enough that she could be still, she wept, silently. He'd called her -- Who the hell did he think he was? Damned proud changeling. Had he seen a fraction of what she had seen? What were his nightmares compared to those of anyone else she knew? Furel with his ripped-off arm, Edon -- That's not fair, she told herself, but she was angry. He'd -- Of course she was angry. Odo was her friend. She'd seen too many friends with blood coming out of them. How dare he subject her to that again, how could he --

She forced herself to calm down. It's just that he's Odo, she thought. I thought he'd never hurt me that way. He was my anchor, my compass, the strong wall at my back. And now he's only human, after all. She let herself laugh harshly and wiped at the tears on her face.

She got up, moving into the numbness that always came after anger, and began to clear the table. The pottery felt rough and real beneath her hands, steadying her. Absently she stowed them, one by one, letting her mind drift. Odo's skin beneath her hands, smooth, but still real, as real as the earthenware bowl she held. He'd called her -- How could he have the nerve to carve up skin so fine...?

Finer than Edon's, his hands coarse from work. He was her strength now. She remembered the last time she'd seen Edon wounded, gashed in the head, blood everywhere...the scratches she'd given him the last time they were together. The last time...she remembered Edon's arms around her, strong against her body. Love, Edon had murmured, his body close against hers. I love you. Even if I strayed, it wouldn't matter. I love you. Once wouldn't matter.

The alien child in her belly moved. Kira cried out, a short, sharp moan. She didn't realize she had dropped the bowl until it had shattered on the floor beneath her.

Nerys. He'd called her Nerys.

*

She stood a long time in the front chamber, hardly breathing, letting her eyes adjust to the dark. She felt a strange dread of seeing him this way, asleep; all her instincts told her that her friend needed privacy and would resent her intrusion. She scarcely knew why she was here, except that this was where she always went when she was in need of comfort.

She had been afraid that she would walk in on him -- knife in hand, or nude...her mind hadn't wanted to explore the possibilities too closely. But the quarters were silent, except for her pulse, except for his breath.

She stayed there for just over an hour. Eventually she sat down against a bulkhead, in the same position she'd found Odo, weeks ago: her knees drawn up against the slight swell of her belly. The darkness of the room surrounded her, and she turned her face to the ports where the stars of Bajor circled. She counted them, remembering the constellations she'd learned as a child. I submit to Your will, she thought: an old prayer to the Prophets. I recognize Your providence. Kira Nerys turned her head to the bulkhead to feel its cold surface against her cheek, remembering where she was: many thousands of miles above the earth on which she'd been born, in the home of the man she loved.

After a long time it seemed the most natural thing in the world that she go in to him.

*

He was asleep. And he was nude -- lying on his side, the topsheet gathered at his hip. But the dread she had expected had dissipated; he was Odo, and she wouldn't fear him.

It was like watching a stranger sleep. She hadn't realized that of all her loved ones, Odo was the only one she'd never seen asleep; it was odd, the effect that small formality had had on her. Now she stood above him as if she were on watch. He was breathing through his mouth, wheezing a little.

Kira reached out a hand and touched his face.

He didn't wake. There was a little unexpected stubble on his chin. Kira waited for his eyes to shoot open, but his breathing didn't even change. She stood still in indecision, one hand on the rim of the bed.

But she loved him. And it was very late.

Kira knelt and removed her socks. Then the loose slacks.

She slid herself onto the bed, feeling the coolness of the sheet and the warmth of his body, and slipped her arm around him.

When he woke it was with the surety of a dream. Someone was holding him; a scent was about him of jasmine and deep summer. Odo's hand closed over hers, pressing it to his chest. Behind him she moved her forehead against his shoulder.

He turned his head to see her, so close he could feel the rhythmic heat of her breath against him. He saw her shape his name and he reached for her, feeling the uneven skin where her lips were chapped, the smoothness of her angular collarbones beneath his hands.

Their lovemaking was awkward, at best; it was difficult at first to fit their bodies into something that made sense. Yet from the moment Odo touched her Kira felt as if they were joined by some powerful force field, as if she could not move very far from him. She kissed his hands, his eyes, his neck, and finally the thin mouth, like the arrowslit of a fortress, which, under her touch, opened and became gracious. His hands were learning the shape of her beneath her shirt until finally she slipped it off. His hands were trembling just a little as he touched her.

There was a moment, as he entered her, when both their eyes opened at once, and they were still, staring into each other's eyes, into the depths of this single being they had suddenly become. Then Odo shuddered and began to move, and Kira cried out, her eyes clenched shut, her hand in his hair.

She held him so tightly her arms began to ache. In Odo the world cleared of pain, until only Kira's body existed; even his own body seemed illusory, insubstantial. His hand was trembling violently now, and he stroked her face, murmuring her name, until her hand behind his head tightened and brought him in to her hungry mouth and her tongue. And the borders of his body gave way, and he broke through them into her, and he was free.

*

"Qar cenuur rei ezheh o?" he had asked in his accentless Bajoran, when he had found his way back to her.

"Oqar we'azhor-eh, Odo, " she'd told him. Because I care for you.

The expressions had shifted through his face: hope, then almost suspicion, and finally acceptance. It was enough. He'd sighed and pulled her to him, stroking her short hair slowly until he fell asleep.

Now, still awake, Kira watched him. His own hair was silky and loose; she hadn't realized until now that he had been slicking it back during the day. He looked so different with it around his face; softer, somehow, and more vulnerable. Human, she thought. He looked almost unfamiliar.

There had been a peculiar unfamiliarity to their lovemaking, too; as many times as she'd imagined being with Odo -- sometimes vividly -- she had never imagined him as human, with elbows and sharp ribs and knees. As a changeling, she realized, he had always seemed above the romantic dance, the mechanics of sex. As if making love with that silent, aloof shapeshifter would have been an act higher than the ordinary earthly holiness of humanoid love.

And there had been a holiness to it. Whatever happens now, whatever happens when he wakes, it won't change anything, she thought. Odo has always been there, always been my other half, my strong wall, my family. Just -- never -- before now attracted to me. Never capable of this kind of love, these "humanoid mating rituals." Now -- now everything is different. Maybe I've always loved him...Maybe this body is more of a blessing than he knows. Maybe this is forever.

She was still awake, her back curled wearily against Odo in the curve of his concave bed, when the call came through.

Bashir's voice, crackling with nervous excitement and exuberant chattiness. "Constable? I know it's early, but I've been up all night, and I knew -- oh, god, you must have been sleeping, did I wake you?"

Odo sat up slowly, letting his hand rest on Kira's cheek for a moment before he reached for the pouch that held his commbadge. "Get on with it, Doctor," he growled, and she smiled.

There was a short silence as the Doctor composed himself. "I -- I think I've found it," he said faintly at last.

"It?" Odo was completely awake; Kira was still clenched on her side, while Odo was sitting bolt upright, one hand gripping the rim of the bed. There was something in his tone of voice --

"It, yes, Constable -- I think I've found a way --"

Kira sat up then, looking over in the dim light at her lover, who had not moved -- and she did not know which disturbed her more, the heavy emptiness she felt at Bashir's good news, or the wild joy that flared in her lover's face.

*

There was an area of the infirmary Bashir had designated as the waiting room, and of all the wards -- the surgery beds, the quarantine chamber, the regeneration clinic -- Kira thought this was the worst. Its grey walls looked no different from those elsewhere on the station, and unlike some other parts of the infirmary it never carried the inevitable stink of the sick. But it was the center of her hell. Here she'd waited while Bareil was dying; here she waited now, for Odo.

They had had one bad hour. She had been silent and Odo had cried but his face had been still, very still. If you've taught me anything, it's that this is the right thing to do, he'd said at last, the tears streaming quietly down his face, his eyes pleading with her.

Go then, she'd said. It's all right. It didn't mean anything anyway. She'd watched him struggle to believe her, knowing that she'd said she'd never lie to him again. In the end she'd kissed his cheek, and her lips had come away with the salt of his tears.

Now she sat amid the grey walls, her hands crossed over her womb. The Emissary sat beside her, wide-shouldered and serene. She wondered what Sisko would do if she asked him to pray in her name for the experiment to fail.

She remembered what Odo had told her, deep into one of the many late-night discussions they'd had in the past weeks. "You will outlive me now," he'd said. His voice had been low; Kira had thought he was almost speaking to himself. "Before, I always wondered what would happen to me when you died, and the others...I would have lived a very long time."

"You don't have to worry about that, at least," she'd murmured.

He had shuddered. "No. I -- I can feel this body -- dying -- every minute --" She'd heard his voice change and known he was struggling, and felt embarrassed for him. She'd never realized how much his reputation as a stoic had come from his changeling's lack of nervous sweat, of nausea, of tears.

He'd never learned quite how to handle crying.

Suddenly she missed him, so sharply her chest ached with it. I'll get over it, she told herself. What was it Ziyal told him? "It'll take some getting used to?" ...Just another lover...not the end of the world... She felt the Emissary's hand on her shoulder, and she realized she had been doubled up, her hand over her eyes, teeth bared.

"Come on, Nerys, go eat something. You've been here a long time," he said, but not in the Commander voice that couldn't be argued with. It was the Benjamin voice, the gentle voice, mistaking her grief over a lover for concern over a friend.

"You've been here just as long," she reminded him, and they smiled wanly at each other. She noticed for the first time the thin lines curving under his dark eyes, the worry that they held.

The door hissed open then and Bashir stood there, rubbing at his eyes. Kira barely heard the Emissary's swift barrage of questions. There was a humming in her ears. "And Odo --" Sisko asked.

Bashir looked up. "It was a success."

And the waiting was over.

*

They were all waiting. He could feel the stillness in the room before he entered, the way the air moved and turned only a little with their breath. They were all waiting for him. He flinched, inwardly. He hated being on display, even to what he could call his friends. Hated being looked at. He checked himself again all over, carefully, then walked through the door.

It had taken him a long time to be able to do this. The convalescence had been slow; Bashir's cure had left him cold and hurting and forgetful, his thought scattered and inconsistent across the newly freed atoms of his body. It had taken a long time before he could form himself again flawlessly, and could speak, could move. It had taken him three months while slowly he had pieced himself together, though he had been unaware of time passing: only of himself and his still unwilling body. He hoped they wouldn't notice how slowly he was still moving.

The doors hissed shut behind him, and he stood before the long table and the shimmering hot forms of the solids. Kira was there. Just behind him, to his right. Breath leaving her body in fine warm gusts. But he wasn't going to think of her. He couldn't do this and think of her.

He faced Sisko and cleared his throat. An affectation, now.

"Constable Odo reporting for duty, sir."

The deluge hit.

They were all on their feet, surging toward him, touching him, hands on his shoulders, his back, voices warm with relief and other emotions he would not go so far as to judge. O'Brien, Dax, Sisko -- their faces flashed before him, crowded with smiles. He didn't think he had ever had such a reception.

Or enjoyed one less.

For despite himself, despite his best control, he was only watching at one person.

And she was still seated, behind him and to his right, her arms clasped round herself and her face frozen in a small, polite smile.

*

He didn't understand until Keiko met him at the door of his office, her child in her arms.

"Odo," she called, peering into the office with a mixture of affection and trepidation. "Miles sent me by to tell you, he'll set up your quarters as soon as you're ready for him."

"Thank you," he replied gravely, standing up out of the office chair.

"We're glad to have you back," she added, leaning in from the doorway to hand him something. A metal box. "Careful -- it's `hot.'"

He set the box on his desk, noting the three-spoked radiation icon on its lid. Food for the living. "Thank you," he said again. "You're very thoughtful. When did -- when did the baby come?"

She beamed then, a big open smile. "Last week. That's right -- you haven't met our Kenji yet."

"Kenji," he repeated. She watched him cross before the desk, moving like an arthritic. But Julian says that will wear off with time, she thought. Odo looked keenly at the infant, with its lidless, ancient eyes, its hair that stood straight up, like an electrified jet-black halo.

"May I?"

His hand hovered over the child's head. She realized what he was asking and said quickly, "Gently!"

Odo lowered his hand slowly, thinking, Already. A changeling again, and already they don't trust me with their children. Before no one would have thought is necessary to tell me... The tip of his forefinger touched the baby's cheek, and the small hand grasped upwards, clutching at it.

If he had still been human he would have gasped. As it was he could only stare, eyes suddenly riveted on the child. The child that Kira had borne in her body. The child that had been growing within her when... He softened the flesh of his finger, removed it gently from the tiny fist.

"They always do that at this age," Keiko was saying fondly. "They'll grab at everything." She didn't want him to be alarmed, he could hear it in her voice. Funny how much more he could tell now from inflection, phrasing...facial expression. He looked up at her.

"Congratulations," he managed. "And -- Major Kira?"

"Oh, she's fine. It was...a difficult birth. Kenji was too big. But she spent a week in the infirmary, and she's just fine now. You haven't talked to her?"

"No."

"I'm surprised -- she was so worried about you, you know."

She watched his face, but it didn't waver. "I didn't know," he said. Abruptly he turned away and walked the slow steps back to his desk. "Tell the Chief I'll contact him," he added, sitting down. "And...thank you."

Keiko smiled and sailed out with her Kenji held tight. As she crossed the Promenade she thought of Nerys, with her pallor, and the quiet way she had of speaking now. She thought of Odo and his blank, unconcerned face. And she wondered why she'd expected something more.

*

There were things she couldn't think of.

The empty spot was growing.

It had started again when Odo had moved from against her body, though it had been born much, much earlier: when her mother had been killed, she speculated, or perhaps when she herself had killed her first soldier. She couldn't remember. It didn't matter. It had been so long ago.

And now it was growing again.

She couldn't think of his taste, the smoky taste of him, like certain fruits of the province where she had been born.

She couldn't think of those hours watching the stars spinning outside, always in night, as if the night of their lovemaking was eternal. She couldn't think of the very tender place on the side of his neck, how he had hissed when she had touched him there, as if her touch had been to his soul instead of his body.

These were things she couldn't have; not now. Now Odo was a shapeshifter again, alien, beyond her comprehension; now he couldn't want her. So she didn't dare remember these things, and others. The things Kira couldn't remember would fill a quadrant.

And so the empty spot, the strangely deep place where all the memories she couldn't have were not, was growing. Most of the time it kept shut, like an old wound; but now it opened, wide and shimmering, like the Wormhole which led to the quadrant of Odo's past, and pain.

Now it kept her up nights. Made her restless. Sometimes she wondered what would happen when it grew too large -- the day she looked in the mirror and saw nothing at all.

The baby was gone. She had not expected to miss it, and she hadn't. Not until she'd seen him.

She'd seen him standing there not two meters from her, mouth open to speak. And she had kissed something like that mouth, once, and though it was her second day out of the infirmary and the painblock Bashir had applied was still in effect, her womb had clenched hard within her, and it had been all she could do to sit still and straight, smiling, smiling...

...and all the while the empty spot grew, like a hungry mouth.

*

He stood before the corrugated grey metal of the Major's door. Cold radiated from it in black sheets. He knew she wasn't inside. Odo looked helplessly down the empty hallway. The cold from her chambers seemed to permeate the entire station.

Don't be melodramatic, he told himself sharply with a little of the old stoicism. It's just your lowered "metabolism." Bashir warned you about... his thought trailed off into blankness. As he came back to himself he was still facing her door, and he realized that he couldn't think of anywhere else to go. Nowhere on the station was safe for him now.

He had waited, all that month, for some sign. Not of forgiveness -- he knew that forgiveness came slowly to Kira, if at all. It was not something he expected. Nor did he look for a sign of welcome, or of desire. Odo looked down at his body with the mixture of pleasure and disgust that fifty-six years had accustomed him to, and three extraordinary months had not quite broken him of. He was a changeling again. Desire was no longer a possibility.

He had waited, instead, for a sign that she remembered, a sign that it had at least been real. Even revulsion would have sufficed; but she had shown nothing, not at the staff meetings, not when he spoke to her, not even when he'd handed her a report and their fingers had touched, nothing, nothing. She was courteous and absent, and very, very busy.
He had come, finally, to her door. It was a Friday; they had fallen, during his sojourn as a solid, to sharing Friday dinner. He suspected that he had not really expected to find her in.

Now he stood lost, without destination. His office, he decided finally. There was work to be done...he still had that, at least. He let himself turn away. It was right, he thought as he headed for the Promenade. It had been only pity. She wouldn't have lied to him. It hadn't meant anything to her, anyway.

*

Major Kira Nerys stood overlooking the Promenade. She was wearing off-duty clothes, a long loose tunic cut from a dark cloth, leggings; the effect was spare and severe against her pale skin. The Promenade below her was closing up slowly, dimming as the lights of the businesses shut off one by one, wire cages rolling down for the night, force fields on the more upscale shops sizzling into effect. She couldn't see Security from where she was standing; it was just below her, out of sight.

She just couldn't convince herself to go down there.

"Penny for your thoughts, Major?"

She turned. It was Jake, the Emissary's child. He was taller than she now, and she straightened to meet his considering gaze.

"`Penny...?'"

He smiled, knowing this was only a formality; the senior staff had quickly gotten used to his father's favourite expression. "Old Earth saying, Major."

"I'm just watching the Promenade."

He nodded, looking past her. "Fascinating."

Kira smiled tightly. "Isn't it."

"But you know, Major," he said, slipping around her, "the best view is from down here."

She watched him as he settled onto the floor, his back to her, long legs dangling over the side of the rampart. Then, yielding, she scooted in next to him, resting her head against the railing. "You're actually right," she said, surprised. They were both silent for a moment, staring out over the quieting station.

"I remember how Odo used to have to chase you away from here," she said, looking over at Jake. He shook his head, grinning.

"I was impossible. I don't know how he stood me. That time Nog and I broke into his office and stole his bucket --" He sobered. "That was pretty awful of us, actually. What with the -- oatmeal and all. I can imagine how he must've felt."

"All to impress some girl, if I remember," she said wryly.

He blushed. "Yeah, well...I'll make it up to him someday."

"How?"

Jake looked over at her shyly. "Actually, I'm -- well, I'm basing a story on him. I don't know how the Constable's gonna feel about that, though."

Her face flattened, just a little. "I think it will depend on how good it is, Jake. What -- what will it be about?"

He took a deep breath and turned to face her. "I'm not quite sure how to go about it, Major. What interests me isn't just that he's a changeling -- you know, the whole Founder angle. I want to write --" he steepled his fingers, frowning in thought, and suddenly reminded her of his father.

"I want to write a story about a man who -- well, maybe he's in the Militia, or the Resistance, and he -- gets wounded, in combat. And when he returns to his family, they don't know him -- his face has changed -- and he has to prove who he is to --" Jake suddenly bit his lip, embarrassed, and looked down.

"-- To his wife."

Kira stared at him, blood roaring in her ears. Through it, from below, she heard the sound of footsteps. Heavy, purposeful. They were running.

*

Midway across the Promenade, Odo felt the air rushing behind him, heard footsteps running. He turned and saw the knife.

As the man charged he recognized him. Zarvik, a Peloxian, in and out of the holding cells for years. He was moving swiftly; crippled by convalescence, Odo would not move out of his path in time. Fool, Odo thought coolly. You should have done this three months ago. That will never hurt me now.

He turned to face his attacker fully and spread his arms, stepping forward. His foot had not set down when the knife met his chest.

Welcome, Odo thought.

He opened himself to the blade.

The knife slid in smoothly, deep into the place where once he had carried a heart. Odo closed around it, and twisted hard with his shoulders to tear it from his enemy's grasp. The Peloxian stared at him, more disappointed, Odo thought absently, than anything else. Odo wrapped the thin-fingered hand he'd made for himself around Zarvik's neck and lifted, raising him only a centimeter off the ground, then letting go with all of his force. In the silence that followed he swept the area with all of his senses. -- An accomplice? -- Anything amiss?

He felt her before he saw her, and when he turned it was slowly. Kira stood above him, at the rail along the upper level, just behind Jake Sisko. She was pale, staring wordlessly at him. At his chest.

Odo looked down to where the hilt of the Peloxian's knife studded his body. A few centimeters of steel showed, and they glittered. A bloodless wound.

When he looked up again she was gone.

*

When she didn't answer the doorcomm on the second ring, the anger laid hold of him. Odo felt like it had been rising in him all his life.

"Kira!" he rapped out, harsh and bitter. "I'm not going away."

He meant, I'm not an object, that you can dismiss me. The door was cool; he knew that inside the lights were out. But he could feel her inside, breathing. Moving. He knew that he should give up and leave her alone. He told himself so: he had no business here. Not anymore. The Major had made it clear that he was unwelcome. He was trespassing, and if she wanted privacy, who was he to -- But it all fell apart under the weight of her eyes, back there on the Promenade. For her to look at him that way -- he had been wrong. He had been wrong about something.

He opened his mouth to override the security code and the door slid open before he could speak. Odo stepped through into night. He stood, his anger arrested for the moment.

"Lights," she snapped, and they came up, harsh and bright. She was standing in the doorway to the inner room, squinting at him.

"You woke me up, Constable," she said, irritably enough that for a second he thought she was telling the truth. But her body heat was wrong, and the flesh of the face wasn't loose enough. Kira was wound tight. For the first time he noticed how thin she was, how the bones in the face showed through, and the investigator in him wondered what it would take to make her lie to him again.

For a moment he stared at her, realizing that, once here, he didn't know what he meant to say. Simple, Ital, he thought. Treat it like an interrogation. Find out what you need to know, then get out. Quickly. Before you embarrass yourself more.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

It took them both by surprise. "Odo," she said, "please just go away."

"You wouldn't," he said, taking a dangerous step forward. She stepped past him, crossed to the desk chair and sat down heavily, keeping her eyes on the floor. So as not to see him, he thought.

"Odo," she said. "Please."

"You wouldn't leave me alone," he continued, circling her chair as if he were examining a prisoner. "You fed me. Kept me alive." His voice sounded rough, unformed.

"Nothing's wrong, Odo, I just --"

"Why did you leave the Promenade this evening?" he demanded.

She looked up, the old Resistance fire coming back in her, meeting her interrogator's eyes. "You seemed to have things under control," she said dryly.

He shook his head slowly. Something in him was clearing; he knew this feeling. It was the feeling of a good investigation, connections flashing into light. "Don't lie to me anymore, Kira," he said.

She ran her hands through her hair. "Constable, do we really have to do this now? It's the middle of the night."

Anger rose in him again, swift as bile. "I didn't turn you away, Major."

She cringed. Her voice rose. "Do you regret it that much?"

"What?"

"I said Do you regret it?" Her eyes were closed, and she spit out the words as evenly as a phaser rifle. "Solids and their mating rituals. The needs of the moment. Is that what you came to see me about, Constable?" She shook her head and stood up, her arms tight around herself. "You don't owe me anything. Don't trouble yourself. It's just a little post-partum. I'll get over it." She turned to go.

Odo was barely listening. The light was all around him now, and the flashes were coming like lightening.

"You avoid me." His voice was incredulous. "You're too busy. You don't even realize, do you? -- You think I'm repulsed by you. You --"

She turned back. He was laughing now, a strange sound, like a blade striking into dull wood. "You cut off our meetings --"

"Odo --"

"You're in love with me."

She opened her eyes and stared at him.

"Nerys," he said.

He reached out.

She hit him.

For a moment they stared at each other, neither believing what she had just done.

She hit him again. Again. Her fists were small and hard. Odo reeled backwards under them. She was awkward, off-balance. She wouldn't look him in the face. The next hit was coming.

And Odo opened beneath her.

Kira sank into him. Caught off-guard, she nearly fell. Odo closed around her with a grip like anger, trapping her right arm in his own body. She wrenched her arm once, twice. It hurt, but Odo held onto her, stepped in close and wrapped his humanoid arms around her, held her like a vise. Held her still.

He couldn't see her face. They were too close. But he could feel her shuddering. He thought she was still trying to hurt him, or else to break away; her body was trembling, yet something about the motion was familiar. Then he recognized it: she was weeping. He could remember, now, what that was like.

"...Kira...?"

He wasn't even sure she had heard him, but he didn't dare speak louder, or come closer to her true name. Odo could taste the tension in her hand and arm: the barely-discernable palsy in the fingers, the swell of blood along the veins.

Remember, he commanded his weak mind, remember what is good for grief.

He brought one hand up to cup the back of her head, held it there tentatively. Slowly, almost fearfully, he began to move his hand back and forth, stroking the short hair.

The sensation was different than what he remembered; he could feel each hair individually, like tiny pins. Kira stiffened, and he knew she was also remembering. The hand within him flinched, then relaxed. And she began to sob in earnest.

He held her still, pressed lengthwise against her, absorbing her rough grief. Kira, he knew, had not wept in front of anyone in a long time. At some point she brought her free arm around him and pressed her fist into his back. When her fingers uncurled, he was no longer holding her; they were holding each other.

They stayed like that a long time.

Finally her sobs began to slow. Her right arm had fallen asleep, but she didn't want to move it. He said her name again. Her nose was running and she didn't want to smear his skin, so she turned her face away, one eye pressed up to the darkness of his chest.

"Odo..."

His hand stopped moving.

"Odo -- why -- Qar -- qar cenuur rei ezheh o?"

Why did you come here?

His answer came in a voice she hadn't known he possessed, a voice so gentle that for a second Kira wondered who was speaking.

"Oqar -- we'auru'or eh." Because -- I am in love with you.

Auru'or... She pulled away. He let her go and she stood there cradling her stinging arm, looking at him through eyes swollen and red. His face was a study in fear. Had he been wrong? Should he have taken the risk? And what if she really didn't --

She could read it all in his expression. Funny, she thought blindly, wiping at her face. She didn't remember Odo ever being so transparent before. At least not as a changeling.

"I thought you couldn't," she said.

He harumphed. She almost smiled. "I assure you, Major..." he began, but his tone changed midway back into that devastating gentleness. "... that I can."

She understood, and her smile vanished. "How long?"

"A long -- a long time." It was as if he had suddenly realized what he was saying. He looked at the ground.

She spread her good arm. "I'm a solid."

He nodded. "I know."

She let her breath out harshly and turned away, looking for the chair. Feeling was coming back into her other limb -- the one that had been in him. She collapsed into the chair as her body shivered at the thought, and leaned forward, feet apart, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands. "What are we going to do, Odo?"

"I was hoping you would be able to answer that." The terror was back in his voice, and she looked up. He hadn't quite reformed himself where her flesh had met his, and there was place in the center of his uniform where the lines of his body were rumpled, like an early morning bed.

"Well, Constable," she said, not moving, her eyes fixed on him, her voice low. "I know that I am going to fight you, with every ounce of my strength, if you ever, ever walk out on me again."

He looked up, and she caught her breath at the expression in his eyes.

"The only problem is that we're so different," she faltered. "Physically." She looked down at her hands, preparing herself. This wasn't something she wanted to say. "Odo, I know -- I've seen your response with --" she took a breath "-- with others of your people. I'm not --"

"Nerys," he said. Her head snapped up; he was standing right next to her. She'd forgotten how quietly he could move.

"Nerys," he said again. "Stand up."

She stood up. He stepped close, but made no other move towards her. Kira closed her eyes, reaching out for his hand.

Odo felt her nearness to him, the space in the cabin all around them, her heat. Kira tipped her head back, and he could feel her breath shake against his lips. Blindly he lowered the clumsy solid's mouth he'd shaped for himself. And stopped.
No, he thought in despair. I can't, it's -- a mock-up. A fake. I can't...

He pulled away. Kira made a sound, a small moan of frustration. And then she felt his touch again on her face.

Odo had lowered his face to hers, almost nuzzling her, dragging his skin across her own. She stood still, trying to understand.

It was like liquid and like flesh, like the moment at the beginning of burning when the senses blur between ice and flame. He had loosened himself, let the solid form drop from him.

Odo was kissing her.

She turned her face into him, and the kiss was joined.

It was sweet and deep, impossibly deep. Beneath her tongue she could feel the surges of his body, like speech, as if his emotions had been made flesh. As if they held the shape of his pagh. And she thought that it was almost inconceivable that this man who had always seemed like a fortress to her, like a fortress of stone, should have a kiss this open and gracious...

Kira began to laugh, and they broke apart. She pressed her forehead against his chest and he brought his hands up to the small of her back. "What?" he asked, half bemused, half terrified.

Kira leaned back against his hands and looked up. "I'd know you anywhere."

Odo brought one hand up to her face. "Not that different," he agreed gravely. And then he pulled her in.

*

She woke at last to his voice.

He was still half-asleep; she could tell by his body, long and vague, part of him still liquid and spilled across her legs and the bottom of the bed. She rose from sleep slowly, turning and licking her lips, nestling her shoulder into his loose body. "What is it?" she asked softly in Bajoran.

He stopped speaking, and looked down at her, half-smiling. "I was talking to myself," he confessed.

"Talk to me," she suggested. His body contracted, pulling closer to her warmth. His changeling body temperature was much lower than her own, she had discovered, but he insulated her like a blanket, throwing her own heat back to her. It was one of many discoveries made during the night; Kira, bemused, had felt the unexpected ignorance and purity of a virgin. One more thing he's given me I thought I'd never have again, she thought, and shivered against him.

"The Founders," he said. "They were wrong."

She waited. Something Odo was about to say scared him, she could tell.

"They were wrong about you. About me. What I am, what I -- can be." He paused. "They...told me you could never love me as a changeling. They told me I was better dead as a humanoid."

She shuddered. "I'm glad they were wrong, Odo."

"They are also wrong about themselves."

She looked at him keenly, fully awake now. He raised one hand, still liquid enough that it shimmered and ran as he moved it, and cupped her face.

She took a swift breath in, her body arching a little to the alien touch she had already learned to crave.

"We're no different, Nerys," he murmured, looking her in the eyes. "Not...not in any way that is important."

She smiled full and wide, her eyes tearing. But there was something more serious in his eyes. "What is it?" she asked again.

"I am of Bajor, Nerys," he said slowly. "The Bajorans are my people. I know that now." His gaze was searching again among the shadows of the room, but his hand gained cohesion and began to stroke her cheek rhythmically. "But the Founders are also my people. I think...I think that my people are in need of an Emissary."

Kira stared at him, not understanding.

"I have been -- the Other -- that they fear," he said slowly. "The Other, that they would destroy. They have to know. I could show them, through the Link."

She saw it then, and for a second felt dizzy. "You're going," she whispered. "You're going away again."

He looked back at her, lowered his body so that their eyes were very close. "Not without you, Nerys," he said, his voice intimate thunder. "Not again, I swear it. Say it, and I'll stay."

"No," she said. Her own voice held lightening. "I was with you the first time. Of course I'll come with you again." She raised her own hand and pressed it against his until the soft pads of her fingers sank into his flesh.

"An erit ke'bre'zhar, er we'llatr errei..." It was a line of ancient spiritual poetry: Though into the hostile land thou goest, yet I shall follow thee there...

He began to weep.

She watched, stunned. He wept with his whole essence; his body was tears. He sat up, straight and still, his eyes closed, his face beading and running, and suddenly she knew the extent of his relief.

Because it was her own. He wouldn't leave her, her body sang. Kira leaned forward with sudden fierceness and took him in her arms.

Beyond them, outside the station, the Wormhole opened, the path to their future, shimmering and deep, like an old wound in the sky.

Or like a flower.-

END-

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