Forwarded by the ASC-VSO Posted: 29 Feb 2004 16:34:22 -0800 In: alt.startrek.creative From: thesnowleopard@hotmail.com Valerie asked me to repost this for her, since it's up for this year's awards. The email addy for the original post is now defunct, but the one for this repost is her current one. She'd definitely appreciate feedback. Paula Title: Missing Series: DS9 Author: Valerie Shearer Contact: nightbird47@hotmail.com Part 1/1 Rating: PG Codes: B Summary: Bashir and a few friends on the night before Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Bashir, O'Brien, Quark, Vic, Ezri, Worf and any other canon person or place is the property of Paramount Studios. I only borrow them. Note on Distribution: This story may be passed on in to others provided the entire header, especially my name and e-mail address, remains intact. It may not be printed or published in fanzines or posted to websites without my permission unless there is already a link to my website. Note to Archivist: Please archive this story in it's yearly parts on the official site. Note on feedback: I love feedback. Give me lots. Constructive feedback is especially good, but I like egoboo too. Any non-flames laden mail will get a reply. Send email to nightbird47@hotmail.com. Comments in the newsgroup are also welcome. Feel free to visit my website at http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Andes/3071/arch1.html for my other stories and this one once it gets added. [Archivist's note: It's been added] Missing by Valerie Shearer Tomorrow is Friday. I'll have to go to the room and see all the names. I don't really look at them anymore. I'm afraid I'll see someone I know. Maybe it's easier not to know. They fill a wall now. If there are more, Sisko will have to have them scroll down a display. He doesn't stay once he posts them. But everyone comes, glancing silently at the list each Friday, hoping their name won't be on the next one. But this Friday will be worse than the others. Worf had gone missing. Then, Ezri went after him. Now, both of their names will be on the wall. I won't look too closely. If I see a name of someone I knew I'll remember everything they were, everything they might have been. The list has two options. Dead. Missing. Now and then it says they were captured but we don't ever really know for sure. But there have been rumors about the treatment of prisoners. We haven't captured many, but we take care of them. I already know about the Dominion. But they do much worse now. Why else would those on the "Missing" list be declared dead after six months? Starfleet won't confirm anything, but I hear things from the patients they bring in for treatment from the front line. They say our people are being used for slave labor now. They work or die. Maybe sometime after six months have gone by they don't care anymore. I already know they abuse their prisoners. They don't feed them enough. Any hint of resistance is instantly punished. At Internment Came 379, they kept us alive for some special reason. How bad would it have been, even then, if we hadn't mattered to them? If we lose this war, will we all know about the Quickening?I still wonder *why* they let us go. Was Sloane right? Was I programmed and still don't remember it? Did we bring something more than ourselves back when we *escaped*? What happens if they catch me again? I came to Quark's tonight so I wouldn't be alone. Tomorrow, with the names, it will be real. Tonight I'd still like to pretend. But there is an empty space here tonight. Miles sits by himself, staring at his drink. I sit with him, and neither of us ordered synthahol. We've been lucky here. We've lost Defiant crew, but death is final. You can go on after you say goodbye. I've lost patients, but most who make it here have a decent chance of survival. When we retook the station, we came home. Miles stares at his drink, sipping it slowly. I try not to notice the young lieutenant who just walked in with the short, dark hair. She must be new. But I don't want to know her. She's with crew from a ship on border patrol. She might disappear, too. There is no conversation. Words would be too final. I keep seeing the dark-haired lieutenant and wishing . . . . We knew Jadzia was gone. I didn't see her in strangers. But Ezri? Is she alive? Is she hiding in some asteroid belt, trying to get home? Was she taken captive? Is she being questioned? Will she die in some grimy hell? I can't allow myself to think of what they might have done to her. And Worf, has she found him? Or has he died in the solitude of space, the air too thin to breath? Better that than at their hand. He escaped, too. What would they do to an example? Miles has spotted the lieutenant. He's watching her. He doesn't put his drink down so often now. Will we ever know, or always *wonder*? When do we stop seeing their ghosts wandering the corridors? When do we finally decide to go on, leaving a shrinking space for them should it be, by some chance, we were wrong? Miles is watching as the lieutenant smiles at her friend. He drains his glass. He stares at it as if he could wish it full again, as if he could will the absent and lost to return. We both know how small their chances are. Quark is standing next to the table with a bottle in hand. He has his own glass. He fills our glasses as he sits. "Should be prune juice. But I don't think I could drink the stuff." Miles looks up from his drink. "A warrior's drink." He holds up his glass. We follow. "To absent friends." We sip our drinks. It's Irish Whiskey, and I hope there are no emergencies tonight. Miles stares at the label. Quark is distant, almost smiling for a moment before his gloom returns. Missing is the wrong word. Absent is better. You missed a day at school and everyone still expected you back. Everyone assumed something more important happened that day. Maybe Worf and Ezri are *absent*. Then, we don't have to scan the room for familiar faces. Our friends aren't dead or hurting. We just have to wait and they'll be home. Miles finishes his drink. He stops Quark from filling it again. "I gotta get home," he says, standing a little unsteadily. He avoids the lieutenant. At least the Klingons aren't in Starfleet uniforms. Quark pours himself another drink. He refills mine and I don't stop him. "She's been around a while," he says. "She'll get back in one piece." If he could sacrifice every bar of latinum he had to get her back, Quark would do it. I stare at the glass, the lieutenant sitting too close. She's with friends. It makes me miss her even more. Something kept her from coming home. Maybe she found Worf too late. Maybe her ship was damaged. Maybe she got lost too far away. I can't think of her under Jem'Hadar control. I don't remember what I was like before they kidnapped me, but nothing was the same when I returned. All the latinum in the quadrant could not get back the Ezri we knew. If--no, *when* she comes home, we'll have to get acquainted with her all over. There has to be a *when*. Nothing else is acceptable. Tomorrow, I won't look for her name. That would make it too real. Right now, I want to finish this glass and go home. Maybe I can sleep. Maybe I can remember, tomorrow, that she and Worf are only delayed. Quark has finished his drink. He's watching as the lieutenant moves towards the door with her friends. I finish my drink and push myself to my feet. My legs are too heavy to move. I really don't want to go home. All alone, I'll think of the kinds of places she and Worf might be. Quark picks up the bottle. "I was going to Vic's. Maybe I'm in the mood for some music." Maybe nobody's told him. I haven't been in the mood for the band since my friends disappeared. He'd want to know. I might even stay and listen to the music. Will he feel much like singing when he hears? I pick up my glass and follow Quark. Inside, the mellow tones of the band are welcome. Vic is singing to a select audience of three. They vanish before we can join them, but I already saw the Klingon face and ponytail, and the two women with spots besides him. It's against the rules but neither of us will mention it. Vic has stopped singing and ambles forward. "I missed you two." He pulls up a chair for himself, and Quark sits. I just watch. "You know, I guess." Vic looks across the room to the corner. "I heard." I sit, Quark pouring me another drink. The band springs to life and starts playing my favorite song. Maybe Vic will sing a little later. But right now, I'd rather sit here with the music and the memories and think of the day we celebrate their return. -- Stephen Ratliff ASC Stories Only Forwarding In the Pattern Buffer at: http//trekiverse.crosswinds.net/feed/ ASCL is a stories-only list, no discussion. 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